Wilbur The King In The Ring: Film Review

Wilbur The King In The Ring: Film Review

Director: J Ollie Lucks

Expanded out from its original Loading Docs short, Wilbur The King In The Ring's documentary has good intentions, and manages to showcase the good and the bad with equal aplomb.

Centring on overweight Wilbur McDougall, who's all positivity and self-effacing, the doco aims to capture life and a friendship that's been years in the making. When McDougall decides to undergo gastric band surgery as he's wrestled with his weight all of his life, his best friend decides to document the journey to ensure that it's captured for posterity.

However, it soon becomes clear that Lucks may have let the idea of a documentary and a certain direction for it cloud his judgement and perhaps, ultimately, his friendship.

If anything, Wilbur The King In The Ring is perhaps an inspirational piece for those who worry about their weight and their self-perception. McDougall's certainly got a self-deprecating way with words, which is captured by Lucks during the film's 2 year period, but it soon becomes clear that both the belligerence of the King wrestling persona and the reality of day-to-day Wilbur couldn't be more different.

But what Wilbur The King In The Ring reveals more of is the tests of friendship with Lucks' pursuit of an angle for the film causing a severe fracture in the friendship that's lasted more than a decade. It's here that the documentary becomes more interesting as the fly-on-the-wall approach captures something a little more mean-spirited than was perhaps intended.

Wilbur The King In The Ring really does become a health piece in the back half of its execution, but it also somewhat manages to feel a little padded out with less to say; there's a distinct feeling that perhaps there was more going on off camera than on, and the doco wobbles under the weight of what's left unsaid.

Thankfully though, with its magnetic subject and very down-to-earth portrayal of the psychology of obesity, Wilbur The King In The Ring manages to break free of its intentions to being a health showcase and becomes a fascinating study of control; of a director who wants to do one thing and of a subject who's having none of it.

Less rumble in the jungle and more tussle of the hearts and minds, it's an interesting observation into the psyche of a friendship - and because of this alone, it makes for a fascinating watch.