THE WRESTLER is a film that focuses on the quasi-world of professional wrestling, and how aging sports stars (with alliterative names) cope with their mortality, both inside and outside of the ring.
Mickey Rourke surprised with a sensitive portrayal of a wrestler yearning to get back into the professional ring. The bum deal is that he has to come to grips with his life, after he experiences a near-fatal heart attack. Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson attempts to reconcile with his estranged daughter, who despises her father for not being there for her during his heydays.
Marisa Tomei is Cassidy, the exotic-dancer, single-mother who breaks her own rules when she takes a liking to the sensitive, behemoth with the shocking-blond mane. This is a vastly different role she has taken, after a brilliant career start with her Academy-winning role in My Cousin Vinny (1992) and going through a rollercoaster of hits and misses like The Guru, Anger Management, and What Women Want.
Both Rourke and Tomei needed this big break as their careers were meandering aimlessly. Imagine this - Rourke turned successful professional boxer for a while (1991-1995)! The Wrestler restored Rouke’s flaccid career, and critics have hailed him as Hollywood’s Comeback Kid. He is realistic as a wrestler, and his physical presence is a real as it gets: trying to make rent, verbal choreography before a match, extensive sports-taping before a match, injecting himself with steroids and working out at the gym. You will gain a sense that the world of wrestling is not as glamorous as it aims to be. Former-Minnesota governor and ex-WWF wrestling star, Jesse Ventura wrote a thesis about the business in his insightful biography ‘I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up’ (Kindle Books). Whether you revere them, or revile them, the politics and pre-work involved may not, necessarily, mean a wrestler will hit pay dirt. It is a gig, and you hope to have as many as your body and spirit can muster – so you can make ends meet.
The film hints at a vicious cycle of a ‘no-win’ situation. Wrestler gets paid for a performance, goes back and nurtures his wounds, pays for pharmaceutical assistance, recovers, and then goes back to square one. At one point in the film, a wrestler-pusher offers Rourke a cache of drugs to help him heal, which pretty much exhausts his earnings. Why do it then, if you have nothing to show for? Quit or stay? Then again, life outside the ring can be even harder. This parallels Balboa: Rocky 6 where the retired boxer punches his way out of relative obscurity because the young champion challenges him on his legacy. So, what’s The Wrestler’s legacy? To stay in the ring, or outside the ring – that is the question.
Director, Darren Aronofsky attempts to recreate the adrenaline rush that precedes each match, and he has succeeded in bringing the realism to screen. You can see the blood, pain, sweat and tears. This is not a happy film; unlike ex-WWE star, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in Disney’s in Race to Witch Mountain.
In spite of its flawed characters, the little imperfections add to the sum of a greater whole – that there is humanity at every moment, whether we choose to notice or identify with it.
It was no wonder that this film was nominated (and won) for the big prizes (Golden Globe; BAFTA) at all major film festivals. It certainly gave Slumdog Millionaire a fight for its money, although The Wrestler is also about ‘winning’ in a different way.
Rating: 4.5/5
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