Review: The Wrestler

Dir. Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood
Grade: A

Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” is one of the best pictures of 2008. It features an outstanding performance by Mickey Rourke, a fine supporting cast and brilliant direction. The story is not a new one. In fact, it is one of the most familiar ones in cinema, but Robert D. Siegel’s honest script never sells the characters (or the viewers) short. This is a major accomplishment in American cinema.


The Plot

The film tells the story of Randy “the Ram” Robinson – a has-been, aging wrestling star in search for that last big break. Randy is not an everyman, but he is the everyman’s man. Randy is still a beloved figure of hardcore wrestling fans (young and old) who grew up worshipping him, now living alone in a trailer park. His only true friend is Cassidy (Tomei), an aging stripper at a New Jersey joint.

The film begins with a montage of news articles about Randy. He was famous enough in the 1980s (a decade him and Cassidy feel a strong affinity to) to have been featured in a Nintendo videogame (one of the best scenes in the film finds Randy inviting one of the neighborhood kids to play the game with him). However, when we first meet Randy, he’s been relegated to a low-end wrestling circuit. To supplement his wrestling gigs, Randy makes personal appearances where he signs autographs and poses with fans. The awkwardness of these meetings, where the hero has to ask the fan for payment, are painfully captured by Aronofsky’s inconspicuous direction.

After suffering a heart-attack following a particularly intense match, Randy (naturally) begins to re-evaluate his life. He gives up wrestling, turning down a chance at a big comeback, finds a job at a local grocery store and, on Cassidy’s advice, reaches out to his estranged teenaged daughter Stephanie (Wood).

The film is full of gritty and realistic moments. For someone pretty disensitized to onscreen violence, I had to look away repeatedly. The fight scenes, in particular, are more graphic than anything in “Fight Club.” Having grown up watching wrestling somewhat regularly, I appreciated Aronofsky’s direction and his expert use of wrestling aesthetics. Aronofsky employs some of the familiar angles used to shoot the sport, and incorporates the theatrics which are characteristic of wrestling spectacles – a referee being knocked out, giving the villain the ability to do something illegal to the hero; the signature moves of each wrestler; the larger than life personas; the raging xenophobia, it’s all there. And yet, to Aronofsky’s credit, the brutality and pain characterizing those scenes pale in comparison to the things taking place off the ring.

The Performances

Marisa Tomei is a tremendously gifted actor and I’m glad she’s receiving a lot of recognition for this role. The “stripper with the heart of gold” is a tired concept, yet Tomei almost re-invents the character and produces something new. There is a kindness in Tomei’s eyes, the way she looks at Randy and, more importantly, the way she listens to him, makes it easy to believe why Randy would fall for her. The two characters are practically at the exact same stage of their lives but their outlooks for the future could not be more different. She sees hope, something Randy is only momentarily able to see. A particular exchange stands out which finds Cassidy – out of the darkness of the strip joint and out in the street, wearing her normal clothes, her face glowing with vulnerability – advising Randy on a gift for Stephanie. It is as touching a sequence as any from last year.

Evan Rachel Wood is equally affecting as Stephanie and she does more in three short scenes that many actors achieve in an entire feature. When Randy and Stephanie first meet, the estrangement is palpable, but so is the love. A trip to the Jersey Shore on a cold, dreary day is the centerpiece to their dynamic – Randy’s apology to his daughter and the promise of a better future gives us hope in spite of ourselves. Like Stephanie, the viewer believes that yes, this time it might be different. Their relationship is as intense and as moving as any father/daughter relationship captured on film, and that is a testament to the actors.

Of course, this is Mickey Rourke’s vehicle and he is magnificent in it. He gives, quite simply, the best performance of the year. Rourke’s Randy is incorrigible, vulnerable, violent, frightened, courageous, gallant, vulgar, and weak. In short, a walking contradiction and, like the song, partly truth and partly fiction. But in the end, the question of how much of what we see on the screen is Rourke or Randy (or both) is beside the point and a disservice to the character Rourke, Aronofsky and Siegel have so carefully crafted. If you get a chance to see it (or re-visit it), look at the way Rourke moves his body, the repeated flips of the unruly mane of hair, the ways he physically relates to the other wrestlers as opposed to how he moves around the children around the trailer park, Cassidy, or Stephanie. Look at him the first time he works the deli counter at the grocery store, going from frustration to enjoyment as he engages with the patrons. See the fear in his eyes as he surmises a room full of former wrestlers. Listen to his voice when he addresses the crowd at that last fight.

Rourke has reached down to his depths and constructed a character so alive that it is at times frightening, and in so doing has given us a masterful and captivating performance.

Overall

The film is not perfect – but what film is (or aims to be)? This is an honest piece of filmmaking that will stand the test of time. Aronofsky’s requiem is heartbreakingly unforgettable and the best American film of the year.