The Wrestler

The Wrestler

By Jonathan Fisher, January 13th, 2009


I only realised just how good The Wrestler is, and how deeply it affected me, during its final shot. I wouldn’t dare give it away, but it encapsulates everything about this man that is at once wonderful and tragically destructive. The Wrestler was directed by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi, The Fountain), and I got the sense that Aronofsky knew he was onto a good thing with Rourke's performance. He shelves his usual flamboyant directorial flourishes, allowing Rourke to create a man that is utterly flawed, in many ways pitiful, but has a kind of rough beauty underneath it all. Rourke also looks the part, and one cannot help but wonder if he used performance enhancing drugs to bulk up for the role. Apparently, Rourke did his own stunts during the wrestling scenes. They are majorly brutal, and I don't think I'll scoff at the abilities of professional wrestlers after seeing these scenes up close.

Mickey Rourke plays Randy “the Ram” Robertson, a professional wrestler who was popular in the 1980s, but in the 2000s is reduced to injecting himself with discount steroids and performing in small-town venues to audiences of about a hundred people or less. He doesn’t have a significant partner in his life, although he is friendly with a stripper played by Marisa Tomei who works at his local bar, and he has a daughter (played by Evan Rachel Wood, best known from the 2007 film Across the Universe) who hates him. Actually, hatred would not be the word. Her feelings toward him are more of a callous indifference.

The film oscillates between his relationship with the waitress, with his co-workers, his profession, his daughter and himself. Some of the behind-the-scenes moments at his wrestling gigs are funny and insightful. Professional wrestling gets a bad rap for being staged, and I must say I'm not a fan, but there certainly is a degree of artistry and creativity to it. Robinson is well-liked by his co-workers, and by everyone generally, but we certainly get the sense that there are internal demons that he is constantly fighting.

Robinson discovers that his health is deteriorating because of the amount of steroids he is using, and he is forced to confront his own identity -- is he Randy, or is he "The Ram"? Can he survive without being a wrestler? He refuses to acknowledge his first name, constantly correcting people who call him "Randy" to call him "The Ram". His entire identity is entwined with his profession, and he is only at home in the ring. Does he use the pain as penance for his sins, as Jake LaMotta does in Raging Bull? It certainly isn't the only similarity Aronofsky's movie shares with Scorsese's masterpiece. But while Raging Bull is about a hopeless case, about a man who can never truly redeem himself, in The Wrestler it seems that there is at least hope for Robinson. Whether or not he can grasp the opportunity, or if he wants to, is what the movie is really about.

The Wrestler contains moments that are not funny or uplifting, not at all. Robinson is invited to appear at a convention for former professional wrestlers in a high school gymnasium, and what we see is heart-breaking. So too are the scenes in which Robinson is forced to take a job at a supermarket deli to make ends meet. But the desperation in these scenes is not without a purpose, contributing to the portrait of Robinson as a broken, hurting soul. Marisa Tomei, who is coming up on 45 years old, oozes sex appeal as a stripper that Robinson forms a bond with, but there is more to her performance than pure sex appeal. Her scenes with Rourke simmer with empathy, and they are surprisingly gentle considering they are exchanges between a meat-headed wrestler and a stripper.

Rourke’s performance in The Wrestler has been described as a comeback and a resurrection for the veteran actor, but what is he coming back from? He has worked steadily, and well, over the last two decades, appearing in such popular films as Sin City, Domino and Man on Fire. This role reflects some of the real-life troubles that Rourke has overcome in the last fifteen years or so, as his life spiralled into drugs, booze, and several attempts at a boxing career, a time in which his face was mangled and had to be reconstructed. I can imagine Rourke’s agent discussing The Wrestler with him, telling him that if he could keep himself under control during the shooting and allowed Darren Aronofsky to guide him in his performance, that he would possibly win an Oscar. That possibility now appears to be a firm likelihood. Often with performances that gain Oscar momentum I find myself admiring the craft and devotion of the actor. More rare are the performances that really make you love and care for a character, however unlikely those emotions would seem. Rourke's performance in the The Wrestler got past all my defenses, and I wound up caring for this flawed, steroid-injecting professional wrestler much more than I thought I would. I really hope he wins the Oscar.