The Wrestler

The Wrestler

Leaving only the task of watching Noah before I can officially say I've seen all of Darren Aronofsky's movies, this has been a film I've been meaning to see for years (It's actually the first film I ever put on my IMDb Watchlist), and now, a full decade after its release, I finally gave it a watch.

Spoilers!

The titular wrestler is Randy "The Ram" Robinson (though his birth name is Randy Ramzinski), who was a superstar professional wrestler in the 1980's, but 20 years later he's living in a trailer that he can barely collect rent for in time, and is still taking any amateur wrestling gigs he can get. After a sort of live-wrestling-torture-show (which I don't doubt for a second actually exists), Ram has a heart attack and is told he can't wrestle anymore, taking away the one thing he had left. The rest of the film is Ram trying to reach out to people and only getting hurt, whether it's Marisa Tomei, a stripper who feels sorry for him but doesn't requite his feelings, Evan Rachel Wood, his estranged daughter who isn't ready to forgive him, or Todd Barry, his rude and disrespectful boss who Ram has no choice but to reach out to for jobs. In the end he decides to return to wrestling despite, or possibly because, he knows it will kill him, and it ends with a perfect ambiguous final shot of nothing but the ceiling and the crowd's reaction. It's both a physically and emotionally brutal film that is so grounded in the writing, visuals, and performances that it often feels more like a documentary than a fictional film.

Mickey Rourke's comeback with this movie was one of the hottest topics of 2008, and for good reason. His brilliant portrayal of Marv in Sin City got him back into the spotlight after years of being out of it, and then he topped it with The Wrestler. The whole film is a character study of Ram, to the point that there are only two scenes that he isn't in, and one of them still has him in the form of an action figure. This means the movie completely hinges on the lead performance, so luckily Rourke is perfect in it. There's never a moment where it feels like he's acting, he's just this guy. Even in his tantrum scene at the deli, which could easily come off as Oscar-bait and unnatural, he's completely present and grounded, which makes every moment of it believable. It helps that the role is so well-written, with screenwriter Robert Siegel (former editor-in-chief of The Onion) making the character so close to an actual, real person through nothing but his dialogue, actions, and relationships with other characters in a seemingly effortless way. It's a lightning in a bottle combination of writing and casting.

Marisa Tomei is heartbreaking without asking for any sympathy, excellently encapsulating the role of a mother who's been dealt a rough hand and is just doing what she can with it. Her scenes in the club are all the tougher to watch when it's revealed how mature and tough she is in the real world, because she has to force herself to be sexy and submissive no matter how terribly she's being treated, and she rides that line expertly. Evan Rachel Wood is also wonderful, with her character being put in the tough spot of forgiving the man who was supposed to raise her and instead never even showed up to any of her birthdays, and when she finally does he stands her up again. She's been put through so much and Wood conveys every ounce of pain she's feeling with every passing second she's around Ram. Her breakdown is another scene that could feel manufactured, but instead feels almost voyeuristic, like really seeing someone driven to the point of giving themselves no other option but to completely reject another human being, even when it's their own father. As a Todd Barry fan, it's initially fun to see him play a jerk, as he's just so good at it, but in the context of the film it very quickly becomes harsh and painful because of Ram's choice to ignore it and continue to plead for jobs, which means Barry gave an excellent performance. There's other cameos, including the great Judah Friedlander and Aronofsky regular Mark Margolis, and they're all great as well.

Aronofsky, a noted auteur, is far less auteur-y in his direction of this film than the rest of his highly stylistic work. It's very meat-and-potatoes direction, straightforward and to the point, but still manages to be unique and interesting because every element it uses is in service of the story and characters (the heavy use of 80's music is simply because that's the music of Ram's heyday, the signature Aronofsky camera-following-the-protagonist-shot is to put the audience as much in Ram's shoes as possible, the handheld documentary-style camera work is there to make the film feel all the more real and therefore painful, etc.). There are no dolly tracks or crane shots (from what I could tell), no music video-style editing tricks, none of that business, just telling the story.

While the movie did get a lot of awards buzz when it first came out, it all seemed to focus solely on Rourke's performance, leaving the rest of the film to be somewhat ignored. He and Maria Tomei were the only Oscar nominations the film got, though there was absolutely room to nominate it for best picture, screenplay, and director. Replace The Reader, Frost/Nixon or, honestly, Slumdog Millionaire, none of which have stood the test of time like The Wrestler. It's insane that such a grounded, real, painful, emotional film didn't get more awards attention, especially when Aronofsky and Siegel had never been nominated for Oscars before. Then Rourke didn't even win, losing to Sean Penn for Milk, which, granted, I still have to see, but come on. Not that any of these awards matter. But come on.

Overall this is a horribly sad movie and I really loved it. You've definitely gotta be in the right mood to watch it, but I highly recommend it as a story of humanity and pain.