OK, but is Mickey Rourke enough?

Rating: 7/10 (4 February 2009)

Mickey Rourke is an actor with an interesting profile in that he started out as a golden boy, then went into a spiral of extreme self destruction, but came out of it without actually destroying himself, to be reinvented as a rather better actor than he was in the first place. The only trouble is that the self destructive phase has left him with facial problems - structure and mobility. This didn't matter too much in Sin City, where prosthetics concealed the structural issues and, in The Wrestler, it can be taken to indicate the damage this man has had inflicted on him on the course of a long - too long - wrestling career. The lack of mobility is something of a problem, and means that Rourke's performance necessarily comes from his eyes, voice and body language.
It is a very good performance, and merits the praise it has garnered. Marisa Tomei is also excellent in a courageous performance as a faded stripper - she still looks good, but for how much longer? I was, perhaps, more concerned about the story. I am a fairly shallow person, and I wasn't looking for subtext, so I saw this as a relatively simple tragedy. Randy's career, such as it is, is cut short by a heart attack so he determinedly changes track, proving to have an aptitude for a job he previously wouldn't have considered, rebuilding bridges in the damaged relationship with his daughter, and working towards a relationship with Tomei's stripper Cassidy. It is Cassidy's hasty and ill-considered rejection which leads to him missing dinner with his daughter through being drunk, which finally destroys any chance at reconciliation, as a result of which he goes back into the ring with inevitable results. It is a small, unhappy story which celebrates nothing, which is why I find it difficult to celebrate this film despite its undoubted merits.
A couple of other things I didn't like much: Rourke is the noisiest breather in the history of movies, and there was too much - far too much - of hand-held cameras following people around (Rourke leads us on a complete tour of the supermarket building where he works at one point).
I'm glad I saw it, I'm not keen to watch it again.