The Wrestler
Although I find wrestling ridiculous, The Wrestler is an unusually good film from maverick director Darren Aronofsky. To say his previous films, such as Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, divided audiences and critics would be an understatement. However, here he is likely to get much more unanimous praise, not least because The Wrestler contains an extraordinary comeback performance from Mickey Rourke.
Rourke’s work has been wildly inconsistent, and like Randy “the Ram” Robinson, the character he plays in this film, many thought him to be washed up. Up until this point, I considered his best performance to be in Alan Parker’s 1987 Faustian thriller Angel Heart. However, here he seems to have taken a leaf out of Robert De Niro’s Raging Bull school of acting. Considerably beefed up, Rourke immediately conveys middle aged Randy as weary, with laboured breathing and struggling to move his large, steroid pumped body around outside of the ring. It’s an utterly convincing and breathtakingly physical performance that will surely earn an Oscar nomination – if not a win (assuming political correctness doesn’t demand that Sean Penn wins for Milk instead).
Although Randy is broke and living alone in a trailer park with his glory days long past, inside the ring he is still delivering the theatrical goods. However, after suffering a major heart attack, he is forced to retire. He takes a job behind a deli counter in a supermarket, tries to make amends with his estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), and makes a play for stripper friend Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). But it might be too late to change what he is, especially as it is only a matter of time before he is lured back into the ring for one last fight.
This is an admittedly clichéd story, but Robert D Siegel’s screenplay skilfully avoids predictability, and Aronofsky’s gritty direction ensures this looks and feels unique. In addition to Rourke, there are good performances from Marisa Tomei, whose story is contrasted with that of Randy. Like him, she is aware that she is getting older and ought to get out of her job, but unlike him she did not walk out on her family and is determined to support her young son. Evan Rachel Wood is also very good as Stephanie, understandably bitter with her father’s hopeless inability to live up to his promises.
Yet it is Rourke who dominates this film, and rightly so. In addition to the physical stuff, he adds genuine complexity to this tragic, angry, kind, irresponsible, and deeply flawed character. Although he isn’t entirely sympathetic, it’s hard not to pity him as he goes about trying to, as his daughter puts it, fix something that cannot be fixed. There are also surprising moments of humour, such as where Randy and Cassidy lament how Kurt Cobain destroyed proper 80’s rock bands like Guns N Roses, and the excruciatingly mundane routine of serving unreasonable old ladies at the deli counter. Although it could be argued the inevitable emotional showdown is dangerously close to sentimental, Aronofsky knows exactly where to finish and avoids such problems.
From a Christian perspective, I do have some issues with The Wrestler. The main message seems to be that a leopard cannot change its spots and that like it or not, people are what they are. Randy goes about the film trying to change, and whilst I agree it is impossible in our own strength, with God it is possible, and that is something this film chooses to overlook (despite a brief allusion to Randy perhaps having a faith of his own when he crosses himself before going into the ring). In addition, there is a lot of strong swearing, sex, nudity and wrestling “violence”. The swearing seemed contextually justified, albeit unpleasant, and the wrestling fights are amusingly contrasted with the polite, courteous backstage choreography planning meetings between opponents (even a particularly nasty one involving staple guns, glass and barbed wire). However, there is definitely too much nudity, even though one might expect such things in a strip bar, and I doubt the filmmakers intended any of it to be gratuitous.
In short, this is certainly a good film with a career-best performance from Mickey Rourke, but one that would have benefited from a more redemptive plot and more restraint in the strip bar scenes. As such, it gets my recommendation, but with extreme caution.
Simon Dillon, January 2009.
