Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2009 > January > 30 > Entry
‘The Wrestler’ puts the heart in a headlock
I actively dislike wrestling. I have never sat though an entire match once. Mickey Rourke has never been among my favorite actors, and if I were to spot his character, Randy “The Ram” Robinson on the street, I would probably duck the other way.
And yet I loved The Wrestler.
The movie powerfully demonstrates how great storytelling trumps all considerations, including a subject matter that normally rubs me the wrong way. Rourke, nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, delivers an indelible performance, and Darren Aronofsky directs with a keen eye for detail, plunging the viewer headlong into the world of wrestling - and into the life of a man who suddenly finds himself unsure where he belongs.
Randy has always been good at wrestling and only wrestling. Otherwise, his life is a shambles. His glory days have long since passed, and he ekes out an existence performing in shabby arenas and trying to make friends with neighborhood kids with Nintendo - the old kind of Nintendo. Time has passed Randy by.
One night during a match he is felled by a heart attack, and the doctors tell him he can never wrestle again. Trying to piece his life together, Randy forges relationships with two women: his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and an exotic dancer (Marisa Tomei, nominated for Best Supporting Actress) to whom he’s attracted.
From the largest part to the smallest, the performances are top-notch. I’m sometimes suspicious of hyperbolic praise like “the performance of a lifetime,” but in Rourke’s case, it’s absolutely true. If there was a character he had to play, Randy the Ram is it. And his performance isn’t all in the physique - his haunted eyes reveal a desperate soul trying to reach out to anything that might love him back.
“The woman with a heart of gold” has become a cliche too, but writer Robert D. Siegel and Tomei make her character interesting by turning her into a mirror image of Randy - another aging person in a frowned-upon profession that puts a premium on youth. Not getting enough praise is Wood, who is heartbreaking as the daughter who senses that any relationship with her father can’t work.
Aronofsky’s direction isn’t as stylish as in Requiem for a Dream or the undervalued The Fountain, but as he does in all his movies, he creates a fascinating world that seems all too real, even if we have never been to such a world. Giving his images a grainy, rough-hewn texture, Aronofsky makes The Wrestler feel absolutely lived in. The filmmakers find the humanity among every bit of grit and grime. Randy’s story could have very easily turned me off. By the end, I was absolutely rooting for him.
Mind you, I’m not going to start attending matches regularly or putting people in headlocks, but I will be happy to promote The Wrestler as a must see - for fans and non-fans alike.
GRADE: A
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Reviews
Comments
By ron
February 1, 2009 8:37 AM | Link to this
good review, and i’m looking forward to the movie… q: tell me what you liked abt “the fountain”? i could barely stay awake thru it…By Kim S.
January 30, 2009 10:34 AM | Link to this
I do watch the WWE on a semi-regular basis, but that’s rather irrelevant. This film is one of the best of the year, and I do not understand how Darren and the picture weren’t also nominated. The other thing that struck me about the film is the starkness of it - shot almost documentary style. For me, Ram was everything that Rocky never was - believable, honest, heartbreaking and real. The scenes with Wood are absolutely devistating, as I sat there and cried openly. I do hope Rourke wins (I’m not sure he will), and I agree that it’s a film that should be seen immediately if not sooner, and being a wrestling “mark” doesn’t have a thing to do with it.By ME
January 30, 2009 8:57 AM | Link to this
I have to admit in my junior high days that we watched WWF … Why now I’m not really sure, but we loved Randy the Savage and Hulk Hogan. I would not give it my time today, but this movie looks like such an amazing performance by Rourke. It sounds like we should watch it no matter what! And I say bravo to Rourke who hasn’t always had a stellar acting career. He’s found his calling I suspect.