Dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2008, US, 115 mins
Cast: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood
Review by Richard Mellor
This is a part that Mickey Rourke was born to play. Or rather re born, as this starring role as a veteran grappler confirms his return as one of cinema's leading leading-men, following an absentee period of professional boxing and personal darkness. Thanks to his time throwing punches, Rourke has his own share of scars, a haggard, grisly physique and quite the opposite of ring-rust. He also has those memorably small, beady eyes that once seduced Kim Basinger and now scrutinise colourfully-coutured opponents with an air of menace.
With his thinning hair and puffy lips, Rourke also looks more than a little washed-up, perfectly suiting his on-screen persona, Randy ‘The Ram' Robinson. An adored main-eventer on national television in the 1980s, famed for his feud with the hated Ayatollah, Randy now wrestles independently in sparsely-populated school gyms and town halls. And much as he gleefully continues to love the sport, his body — still fed with steroids, still tirelessly worked-out and still perma-tanned and bejeweled — is a ticking time-bomb, edging ever closer to implosion with every ‘clothesline' or ‘spinebuster' endured.
Randy's reluctance to retire — or inability to know any different — forms the nub of Aronofsky's film. This unwillingness is neatly stressed by an insistence that strangers use ‘Randy' or ‘Ram', rather than his real name of Robin Ramzinsky. That would be to break the illusion, to face reality. It's easy to see why Randy clings onto the image. His real world is dull and troubled by comparison to the glamorous stage life that provides his juice. Needing extra cash, he works shifts in a supermarket, while downtime is spent playing wrestling games with the local kids in his shabby New Jersey trailer park.
But eventually, after a fearsome (gore-phobes beware) match involving barbed wire, stapling and even false legs, Randy's body calls time on his career. Forced to focus on life outside the ring, he turns his attention onto the two women in his life: Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), a little-seen, spiky daughter who hates him for being a hapless, absent father and Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), a kindly, but distant, stripper, who's similarly treading water in life. As Randy sets about building up these two relationships, he tries to resist the temptation of one last fight, a re-match against the Ayatollah.
Ever a director with a keen eye for detail, be it mathematical formulae or drug addiction, Aronofsky builds Randy's wrestling legend with fantastic care. The opening credits see a camera scan Ram's memorabilia, as commentators foretell his finishing move, the Ram-Jam. We learn little new about wrestling — matches are pre-planned; performers make themselves bleed to sell their opponent — but what is surprising is the tenderness of this world. Every wrestler encountered is caring, respectful and friendly towards his companions, plus deeply proud of performing well and getting a decent crowd ‘pop'.
That being said, there's a tad too much of ‘LOOK — HE'S A WRESTLER, AND HE'S NICE!! LIKE A REAL HUMAN BEING!!??!!' going on. And if that element of The Wrestler is overdone, its family saga is conversely undercooked. Quite how Randy wronged his daughter is never made clear — Aronofsky seems strangely disinclined to dwell on his subject's flaws — and Wood's character is tawdry, her stern stares and lesbian vibes limited to three scenes. But the director handles Rourke's relationship with Tomei better. Neither is quite able to admit their feelings for the other, the mutual thick skin of their professions translating into emotional stiffness, they romance as gingerly as 16-year-olds at a disco.
Tomei does excellently, but ultimately The Wrestler is all about its main character. It's structure might be as predictable, see-sawy and climactic as any sports film or indeed wrestling match, but any lack of surprise is more than compensated for by the astonishing detail in Rourke's performance. Breathing heavily and greedily in every scene, he positively creaks, and eventually conks out like an exhausted banger. Realising he's just "an old, broken-down piece of meat", Randy's sudden humility tempts tears. Rarely can an actor have balanced toughness and tenderness so judiciously.
If Rourke doesn't get the Oscar for Best Actor, there ought to be Ram-Jams for everyone in the Academy.
|
