There was once a time not so long ago when professional wrestling was hugely popular. Since then, however, The Rock has hung up his apron, Hulkmania was cured, and panda bears were proven tougher than men in tights when, in 2000, the World Wildlife Federation sued the World Wrestling Federation for use of the WWF acronym and won. Darren Aronofsky's new film, "The Wrestler," does not try to relive wrestling's glory days, but rather helps the audience understand what drives this peculiar breed of men to do what they do.
The titular wrestler is Randy "The Ram" Robinson (played by Mickey Rourke).Robinson's introduction at the start of the film manages to fully communicate his situation. Robinson wakes up in the dark to the shouts of his adoring fans, but when he opens his door, the audience finds that he has been sleeping in his van and the shouts are of neighborhood children, to whom the wrestler is more of a curious figure than a heroic one.
Robinson is broken, battered and falling apart. He has a hearing aid and wears wraps on his elbows and knees, which are strained from too many goes in the ring. His hair extensions fall long and bleached over his shoulders, and his body, pumped up with steroids and burned brown from hours spent in tanning beds, is covered in scars. The only things that keep Robinson going are weekends spent practicing his craft in halls and gymnasiums across New Jersey.
Professional wrestling may be fake, but Aronofsky's film manages to show that fakeness does not mean that no one gets hurt. Even though the punches are pulled, the fighters still take hits.
Before one particularly gruesome match, Robinson's opponent asks him how he feels about staple guns. The discussion warns the audience of what is coming, but when viewers see the men grappling through thumbtacks, barbed wire and broken glass, they can't help but cringe. When the staple gun finally comes out, there's no faking, and when the staples go in, it is almost too much to watch. The tears flowing down Randy's cheeks, mixing with the blood pouring from his wounds, are clearly not mere tears of pain; he's crying for himself and for what his art has become. After the exhausting match, Randy suffers a heart attack, which can be understood as the physical realization of his heartbreak.
Outside of wrestling, Randy's life is a sad mess. He is estranged from his only daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and the closest thing he has to a friend is Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), an aging stripper who he pays in return for conversation. When Robinson is told to stop wrestling for medical reasons, he faces a crisis.
Robinson's entrance before his comeback match will go down in cinematic history. With a half-hearted smile Rourke manages to transmit a world of emotion and to send chills up the spines of viewers. Even if the film hadn't been brilliantly written — and it certainly was — Rourke's performance, for which he recently won a Golden Globe award, would be worth the price of admission alone. A former boxer, Rourke is no stranger to the physicality of the role, and no other actor could have so convincingly portrayed this aging fighter.
The film offers little consolation or warmth but it isn't a weepy affair. The screenplay was written by Robert Siegel, former-Editor-in-Chief of the satirical newspaper The Onion, and the film, much like "The Ram" himself, is a softie at heart filled with many wry chuckles and the occasional outright laugh. The film has no agenda, but by the end, it's difficult not to have some admiration for wrestlers.
"The Wrestler" is set in a stereotypically run-down, dirty part of New Jersey, with scenes filmed in a cold, quasi-documentary style. The camera, often handheld, hovers around the characters, putting the viewer directly in the scene. There is nothing Hollywood about "The Wrestler," either in character or production. The glitz and glamour are absent and not missed.
Besides Rourke's much-lauded performance, the entire cast — from Tomei and Wood, who have fairly large roles, to the smaller characters — perfectly complete the film's world. The love and attention that went into the project from all contributors — including Bruce Springsteen, who wrote an original song that in no way feels like a gimmick — shines through in every scene. What could have been a by-the-numbers melodrama ends up as something so much more.
"The Wrestler" is an astonishing, highly personal feat of filmmaking: a love story of sorts about an artist, his work and the lengths that he will go to preserve his authenticity and self-respect. Yes, we're still talking about professional wrestling.
