The Wrestler (2008)
While I’m not a sports person in real life, I love sports movies. Movies like Rudy (1993), Dodgeball (2004), A League of Their Own (1992), and Whip It (2009) always warm my heart because of the passion, intensity, and pure exhilaration that’s taken from the characters and their love for sports. In all honesty, I’m not much of a person for feel good movies, I much prefer a drama to a comedy, but sports movies will have a special place in my heart. The Wrestler (2008), is a fantastic sports movie, but let me tell you right off the bat, this is not a feel good movie. Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 Golden Lion winning motion picture mixes sports with drama in this unforgettable film.
The Wrestler stars Mickey Rourke as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, an aging wrestler from New Jersey who is decades past his prime. The only thing Randy knows in life is wrestling, but after a particularly bloodthirsty fight, he must hang up his tights to not worsen the condition of his body. While on leave from wrestling, Randy tries to form relationships with a mellowing stripper, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), and with his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). Randy tries to find love with the people in his life, but he realizes his true love is wrestling, and he prepares to make a resurgence in the ring.
The Wrestler is not an easy movie to watch. This movie is gritty, violent, and real. There is no sugar coating the reality of the lives of these characters. Randy is a washed up old wrestler desperately nostalgic for his prime time, Cassidy is too old to make money as a stripper, and Stephanie wants nothing to do with her father because of his absence in her childhood. There is a common infatuation among the characters, nostalgia.
Nostalgia is the main theme that I picked up on throughout the film, and we can see this in all the characters but especially in Randy. From the very beginning of the film, we see Randy sitting in a elementary school classroom, and moments later we see him playing with the neighborhood kids. In one scene we see Randy playing 80’s nintendo wrestling game with a young boy. Randy plays himself as a character, and he beats his young opponent. Through this dated video game, we see Randy relieve his acme through a screen. Randy’s cravings for superstardom guide his every action. A broken heart (emotional and physical), are not going to serve as barriers to his success.
Physicality is another important theme in the film. Randy’s entire life revolves around the condition of his body. If his body doesn’t work exactly the way it should, perhaps even better, he is nothing. In the beginning of the movie, Randy ends up in the hospital because of a heart attack after a brutal match. The doctors inform him that wrestling is no longer an option for him, that he will die if he is to wrestle again. In the period of the film that Randy takes the doctor’s advice and stops fighting, nothing goes right in his life. Cassidy rejects him, Stephanie estranges herself from him, and he struggles with his job at a grocery store. Randy decides that he will fight again, even if it annihilates him.
Mickey Rourke gives the performance of his career in The Wrestler, it’s physical acting at it’s finest. Rourke’s transformation from the beginning of his career to now is quite shocking, after discovering drugs Rourke looks like a new man. While many thought his sudden change in appearance would put a complete halt in his career, if Rourke didn’t look the way that he did, I doubt he would have gotten the part as Randy, a washed up, drugged up, aging wrestler, much like Rourke himself. Rourke’s facade gives the film a necessary edge that makes the film more painful to watch, but ultimately a better movie.
The Wrestler is a very powerful, disturbing movie. The fights are choreographed, but the pain and passion is not. You can’t help but watch some scenes through your fingers. The film is executed in a subtle manner, much like other films like Good Will Hunting (1997), 12 Angry Men (1957), and The Shawshank Redemption (1994). This movie is fantastic, and I will never hear Sweet Child O’ Mine the same way.
Watch the trailer for the movie here.
