Lucha: A Wrestling Tale is director Marco Ricci’s two-year chronicle of the women’s wrestling team at Taft High School in the Bronx.

It aims to be a story of individual students, a team, a school and a borough, but due to issues of access and focus, it struggles to achieve is goals.

Taft is a struggling, possibly dangerous public high school in a dangerous part of the South Bronx. The women’s wrestling program is still finding its way, but behind enthusiastic young coaches Josh and Robert, it’s a program on the rise.

Over two seasons, we get to know a quartet of young women who each look at wrestling as an escape.

Shirley is functionally unhoused and counting on wrestling to get her into college. Nyasia sees a pathway to trophies and possibly the Olympics if she can just get in better shape and raise her grades. Mariam, a Muslim immigrant from Gambia, hopes to win over her disapproving, conservative father. Alba, freshly arrived from the Dominican Republic, is passionate about wrestling, but has to learn English and watch over her younger brother at the same time.