LUCIDMEDIA

As a young boy, the sport of wrestling combines all the things you like in one package: violence, showmanship and larger than life characters. In many ways wrestlers are like superheroes, they have costumes, code names and arch-nemeses. They have catch phrases too, and they often engage in once-in-a-lifetime, cataclysmic battles with fellow titans to determine who the best of them is. Professional wrestling combines the best aspects of fighting games, comic book action and schoolyard fisticuffs, and its players are elevated to the status of rock gods. But what happens when it’s all over? What happens when you’re too old to be a player, but you keep playing anyway because there’s nothing else you can do?

That’s the crux of The Wrestler, a small film that’s intimate to the point of sometimes feeling intrusive. Like a western where the old cowboy saddles up for one last ride, or the heist movie where the veteran crooks go for one more big score, Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson stands at the edge of being rendered obsolete at the only thing he’s ever really been a success at. Further still, it’s not a voluntary retirement, if it were up to The Ram he’d keep fighting forever. But while the will is strong, the flesh is weak. Heart problems force The Ram to be benched permanently, but without the glory of the lights and tights what is he? The fact of the matter is that just plain Randy is alone, working a menial job at a supermarket, having a regular stripper as his only source of human comfort and living estranged from his only child.

Mickey Rourke has been honoured again and again for his portrayal of Randy The Ram, and he is surely deserving of any and all accolades. Rourke has always been one of the actors on the periphery of greatness, yet somehow has been unable to truly grasp it. He’s done some occasionally memorable work and then disappeared back into the B-movie bins as a second-stringer or starred in some direct-to-video dreck. But as the commercial says, this really is the resurrection of Mickey Rourke. But while I certainly recognize Rourke to see him, I didn’t recognize the talent on display here. Maybe it was because the actor invested some of that real life struggle into the part, but Rourke just manages to fit Randy the Ram like glove. He wears the emotions of the character on his face, and makes you buy every second of it.

Director Darren Aronofsky uses a vérité style that manages to be both involving and observational. There are so many shots where the camera frames Randy in the centre and follows directing behind him in a tracking shot, it’s like watching one of those TV news pieces where there’s some kind of sting. It’s cool though because the film’s stoic realism is really driven home by this documentary-like approach, which although done undoubtedly for budgetary purposes, offered an interesting juxtaposition for the two parts of Randy’s life. He was the superstar with a legion of adoring fans, a trademark move and a spot of infamy in an original Nintendo wrestling game; but now he lives in a trailer park, working for minimum wage and is estranged from everyone that ever mattered to him. It’s hard to put a happy face on that one-eighty, and Aronofsky, wisely, doesn’t try.

But don’t think that The Wrestler is a two-hour downer, because it isn’t. If anything, the film makes a strong case for some important life lessons that begins with living on your own terms, but not at the expense of the people. You may discover too late that you can’t change things, and when that time comes you can either embrace who you are or fade out quietly as if you were never there at all. It’s a powerful message and told simply too. So many things can be taken from this film you may debate the various meanings, but on its own The Wrestler is a traditional story about whether or not a man can find his “blaze of glory” moment. With this film, Rourke is a man driven to prove something, and like his character, he does so in a surprising way. From beginning to end, The Wrestler is pure humanity with all its bright spots and shadows. Very well done.