There's something strangely nostalgic about the protagonists in Ruth Leitman's documentary on women’s wrestling — they’re like those smart-assed, unconventional aunts exiled from the family, the ones we track down later and write novels about — or try to capture on film. Lipstick is told in the hardened and passionate voices of the "lady wrestlers" of the 1940s and ‘50s, with a rollicking Tarantino-esque soundtrack and plenty of heyday footage. At the heart, Leitman tells the story of women with uncanny survival instincts who left behind their poverty-ridden and abusive circumstances for the freedom and self-sufficiency found in the ring.

Although criticized for its haphazard narrative, this movie makes no pretense about being a character study — and these characters formidably arc through the gritty lessons of coming-of-age on the wrestler’s circuit to the retirement days (for those that actually retired) when, in superbly gratifying moments, the women reflect without regret on the choices they’ve made. Recommended for the subversive-minded and anyone enraptured with matri-archetypes who state with raspy satisfaction, "I slept on the ground with a good man and a bottle of whiskey," to quote Gladys "Kill ‘Em" Gillem in her final scene, as she edges off-screen and into the rest of her life.