Heels review – this stunning wrestling drama’s fights feel more Swan Lake than WWE

There are acrobatics, broken hearts and so many narrative twists it leaves your head spinning. No wonder fans are delighted by Netflix acquiring this tale of small-time scrappers

Whether a character is a story’s villain or hero is down to perspective. In the case of professional wrestling, these choices are made behind the scenes as Netflix’s latest drama explains, with the heroes known as “faces” and the villains “heels”. In terms of this show, the streaming company takes the former role, saving the day for fans of the US series, which was cancelled by network Starz, and distributing it internationally with rumours circulating that a third season could be on the way if the algorithm gods are pleased. It is, however, a bit more Heel-like when it comes to its other wrestling drama, Glow, whose supposedly part-filmed fourth season will never see the light of day after Netflix cancelled it.

Heels is a much more serious piece than Glow and the laughs are few and far between as Jack Spade (Stephen Amell) struggles with inheriting a lower-tier wrestling league from his troubled father. His brother Ace (Alexander Ludwig) is the league’s biggest attraction and seemingly its only hope of solvency. As those in the know about professional wrestling will acknowledge, the athleticism and the injuries are real, but the outcomes of the matches are not, with lines of dialogue and the ultimate victor tightly scripted in advance. This is a task that Jack takes on despite being hugely overstretched by his day job and his loving but frustrating family life. He chooses to write himself as a “heel” while his Übermensch brother is cheered by the crowds as a “face”, but during season one the tensions between the brothers come to a head. Amell puts in a heartbreaking performance as a man increasingly crushed by responsibility, with the hate by design he experiences in the ring weighing heavy on his soul.