The Wrestler Review
A simple story well told. The Wrestler is a story of an underdog sports hero you’ve seen before (specifically, Mickey Rourke plays has-been wrestler Randy “The Ram”), and will see again. A few things set it apart from the pack.
It’s of a higher quality. This is evident in the script (by Robert Siegel) which endows its characters with a level of humanity and depth not seen often in film. We believe these people, their hopes, their fears, their flaws and strengths.
There’s a stripper love interest played by Marisa Tomei. But she’s not there just to be sexy. She has her own problems, her own insecurities and sometimes even she can’t get a guy to give her some money for a lapdance. This is a real economic issue, as she has a kid to feed. The scene where she tries, and fails, to get a paying customer is really important and effective in establishing her character.
Of course the strongest character is the lead, Randy, played with such likeable beat-up-ness by Rourke you really do empathize with him. This guy deserted his daughter, but when he explains it, you really do understand his regret. It’s heartbreaking when he fails to reconnect with her, his own fault, of course.
That’s another thing that sets this movie apart. Randy doesn’t rebuild his life. He seems headed in that direction, he gets a job, seems set to get a girl, and even sets up a dinner with his estranged daughter. But the guy is nothing but a wrestler. It’s who he is and ultimately it’s all he is. The movie is both tragic and triumphant. Randy flips out and quits his job after the customers annoy him, humiliates the stripper after she rejects him and misses his dinner with his daughter. He has to go wrestle, even though his heart may fail him (he has a heart attack from wrestling in the film), it’s who he is.
Another thing that puts the movie apart is it’s set in a world you may not have seen much of before. I can’t remember the last fictional movie that took you behind the scenes of wrestling in a way that felt so much like a documentary. You see these guys chat, friendly, and then knock the piss out of each other (often quietly checking if the other guy is okay during the actual fight).
And the physical cost of the sport is highlighted in ways that are sometimes truly nightmarish. Around the midpoint of the film Randy has a fight with another glutton for punishment, and watching it is horrifying. They use staple guns on each other, there’s barbed wire, broken glass and all along the crowd screams for more.
Leaving The Wrestler, you may find yourself wondering what was all the hype about? But Randy, made so understandable by Rourke, stays with you.
Sort of Silly Wrestling Thing
Randy’s grand rematch is against “The Ayatollah”, who is loudly booed, mainly, it seems, for being Middle-Eastern.
Greatest Humanizing Character Device
Reading glasses. You can have the most hulking brutish man on the planet, put some reading glasses on that guy and he becomes as cuddly as a teddy bear.
Oscar Bound?
I think Rourke’s got it. Calling it right now. There are better performances, but probably none as deeply relatable and moving.
Darren Aronofsky Directed This?
Yeah. If that’s not the most drastic shift ever (from the visually extravagant mind-blowing The Fountain to the nearly docu-drama-esque Wrestler), I don’t know what is.
-Dan Benamor