A Review Of The Wrestler
If you haven’t seen The Wrestler yet, you really need to. It’s certainly one of the top must see movie downloads of the last ten years, and everything you’ve heard about the movie is one hundred percent true. Rourke really knocks it out of the park and gives the performance of a lifetime, while Darren Aronofsky tops everything he’s done before to come out with a movie that is well beyond anything you might have thought him capable of.
Rourke’s performance is the heart, the soul and the body of the film. He takes some real bumps and went through training to actually learn how to wrestle. That’s really him in the ring. He had a stunt double for a few shots, but for the most part, that’s really him. Randy the Ram is an incredible and very human character.
Randy’s lifestyle has been self destructive, and it’s cost him everything. He’s paying the price, having lost touch with his daughter, and while he and the boys at the locker room are always close, he really doesn’t have any true, close friends.
The movie is heart wrenching, incredibly emotional, and while it shows Randy as he is, as a man who has hurt himself and others with his lifestyle, it never judges him or looks down on him. Randy the Ram is a lovable guy, and it becomes tragic that all cannot be forgiven so easily.
Rourke is, again, incredible here. He lived this role in life for years, suffering through all sorts of problems and losing his place in the Hollywood pecking order. This movie is Rourke’s comeback, his story, just as it is Randy’s. Rourke didn’t just play this role, he was this role. Interestingly, Nicholas Cage was offered the job and dropped out because he knew his friend Rourke wanted it, and, in fact, would have done a better job.
They might have been able to secure a bigger budget had Cage stayed on, but the end result is a smaller, more intimate, personal movie, and it’s all that much better for it. Rourke wrestles for small crowds, and it really drives home the fact that Randy gives his all to every show, whether he’s wrestling for a few thousand fans or a few dozen. He really bleeds it out.
The story is an old one, the characters are stock, but it never feels cliche or predictable. The movie is invested with such real humanity that it really feels like a unique, one of a kind tale of loss and redemption. Even if you weren’t so big on Pi and Requiem for a Dream, this may be Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece, and it certainly shows a deeper level of humanity than his previous efforts.
The movie manages to warm your heart and break it at the same time. It’s something like Rocky meets Raging Bull in the world of sports movies, and the ending carries a double meaning. We won’t spoil it for you, but it’s worth a moment of reflection after the acoustic Bruce Springsteen song plays out over the end credits.
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