Movie Review

The Wrestler

“The Wrestler” has been billed as Mickey Rourke’s comeback performance and it lives up to its title. Rourke left the world of movies for a career in boxing and from the looks of before and after pictures, things haven’t been the same since. There are echoes of his own career in Darren Aronofsky’s film, primarily that of a man beaten down by his own career and anxious for a chance at his own redemption. It’s an idea that Rourke invests his full body and soul in, carrying the pain and grief of a man whose glory days have passed him by. The movie doesn’t always pin it down but Rourke does.

He plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a former star wrestler now spending old age unloading groceries during the week while wrestling in small-scale matches on weekends, all so that he can struggle to pay the rent in the trailer park he now lives in. His life is a mess and his body has seen better days too. Sore to the bone, he’s hooked on painkillers for support. Wrestling is his entire life though and one big rematch against a former opponent could be enough to send him back to the top but before that happens, a heart attack sidelines the aging hulk and forces him to consider retirement. He is also persuaded to reconnect with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), who he ran out on when she was very young.

Aronofsky captures both the hardcore glory of the sport as well as the bleak despair, and Robert Siegel’s script is at its best when it focuses on these competitors themselves. It looks at wrestlers as performers and as athletes, on one hand they’ll choreograph what will happen in a fight and make sure their hair and tan is perfect, but on the other they go through a ridiculous amount of punishment most wrestling fans probably don’t even realize. A hard rock soundtrack and brutal violence showcase a tough sport where giving the crowd a show is the key ingredient no matter what. One scene that stays with you for a while is a match that ends in a bloody mess, and that was the intention. In flashback we see that this all happened because the two men threw everything except a kitchen sink at each other in order to satisfy the crowd’s blood-lust.

This is balanced perfectly with the behind-the-scene moments of painful aftermath and this is where Rourke really makes the film into his own. He’s in amazing physical shape for his age but it’s the haggard, worn down way he carries himself, allowing you to feel every sore and ache. Emotionally he is just as strong, if not better, showing the strain that life has put on him, especially when acting next to Evan Rachel Wood, who does a fantastic job as his long suffering daughter, and Marisa Tomei, also perfect as a gritty but vulnerable stripper he would like to begin a relationship with. The acting works across the board but Rourke really anchors it with a full-body and soul performance that cuts deep.

As the story goes deeper though, neither the cast nor Aronofsky can do much with the predictability that comes into play once “The Ram” tries to reconnect with his daughter and form a relationship with Tomei’s character. The scenes are well acted but it seems like we accept them more because they have to happen rather than because they should happen and that makes the whole movie a little less powerful. It’s too bad cause once the credits rolled and Bruce Springsteen’s fantastic title track for the movie started playing, I really wanted to feel moved. Instead I felt like I saw a good movie with an exceptional lead performance, but left dry-eyed nonetheless.

Craig's Grade: B

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%