Tipped to put up a good fight at this year’s Academy Awards is
The Wrestler, the latest from
Requiem Of A Dream director Darren Aronofsky – though it’s easy to get the feeling that the film belongs to Mickey Rourke. He occupies almost every moment of its 110-minute run-time, which at times feels like a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Rourke channels Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, a spandex-clad professional wrestler who dominated the ring 20 years ago. He’s kept up the wrestling – and regular visits to the solarium – but life has him up against the ropes. He’s alone, stacking supermarket shelves and sleeping in his van when he can’t pay his trailer park rent.
After years of physical damage and a particularly punishing match, Randy is struck down by a heart attack. Faced with the prospect of never wrestling again, he finds himself re-evaluating his priorities. He tries to reconnect with his estranged and bitter daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and confides in someone who also knows a thing or two about demeaning their body to make a living, aging stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei, in varying levels of undress).
There’s a brutal, ligament-tearing, spitting-out-blood realism to the wrestling sequences that isn’t for the faint-hearted. The cast is made up of real pro-wrestlers who know their way around the stage and, for a ‘fake’ sport, there’s a hell of a lot of genuine pain going on. Think razor blades and staple-guns. What’s more surprising, though, is that they’re able to hold their own as actors as well.
But some of the finest moments take place outside the ring: Randy stoically manning the deli counter at the supermarket or trying to work out what to buy his daughter as a birthday present. There’s much more warmth and humour here than the bluntness of the movie’s title suggests, and Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson turns out to be an utterly compelling tragic hero.
A lot of critics are talking about
The Wrestler as a sort of allegory for Rourke’s own journey of self-destruction. (The parallels are there: Rourke had something of a falling-out with Hollywood in the ’90s and pursued a career as a boxer.) Even if you don’t buy into all that hooey, it’s no stretch to say that Rourke has put in the performance of his life here, and yes, there’s every possibility that he’ll be putting the chokehold on Oscar in a few months’ time.
The Wrestler comes out in cinemas on January 15, 2009.
You can view The Wrestler trailer here on TheVine.