moviereview - The Wrestler

THE WRESTLER

	Randy 'The Ram' Robinson is a past-his-prime wrestler whose reaching a fork near the end of his road. Unfortunately, neither option is very appealing.	score 4	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
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Cast
Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Mark Margolis, Todd Barry

Director
Darren Aronofsky

Screenwriter
Robert D. Siegel

Country
USA

Rating / Running Time
MA / 109 minutes

Australian Release
Januray 2009

Official Site

Idiosyncratic filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) saved last year’s Venice Film Festival when his remarkable portrait of wrestler Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson was premiered. He picked up a Golden Lion for Best Film yet more significantly, threw Mickey Rourke’s maligned career back in the ring to watch it beat off all contenders. Rourke’s mesmerising performance is the heart and soul of an existential exploration of self-definition locked on a sports flick.

Randy is the bastard offspring of Hulk Hogan and Rocky Balboa, a faded 80’s wrestling icon who lives in a trailer and gets by with appearances in shopping malls. He strives for a professional appearance of strength and youth - stringy blonde hair and steroids mostly – but physical theatre is taking its toll. Pulling staples from his back is not as much fun as it once was. Fate is at the centre of a story draped in bleak humanism that follows Randy from wrestling ring to a heart attack and back. As he explains to his only friend (the impressive Marisa Tomei) - a past-her-prime lap-dancer also in the business of exploiting body for profit - he knows no better, and has nowhere else to turn.

There’s a certain over-arching familiarity about this tale of a comeback king, but plot is not driving Aronofsky’s superb film. His body of work has been a study of human capacity for self-mutilation, self-deception and self-disgust. This is the latest chapter that, despite the down beat tone, soars on Rourke’s own unlikely return. Randy has been dredged up from deep within the actor’s past and beats with an aching realism. Amid the self-destruction, he offers Randy, and The Wrestler, an understanding that can only come with graceful self-acceptance.

// COLIN FRASER