Great

Rating: 8/10 (1 September 2010)

The Wrestler is the vehicle for Rourke to shine on. It's a film that claws and earns its way to greatness. Perhaps the worst thing is the film is the nearly unreadable font of the opening credits, but after that, it's all excelsior. It's small moments remind me of The Jimmy Show, a terrific, and similarly unsentimental, 2001 film that got as much indifference as this film got hype. Both films are unafraid to show life's unpretty side, but neither film buys into the false heroics of Hollywood endings, nor the false travails of more melodramatic 'indy' films. It also piques one to envision what a truly adult film by the hit and miss director Kevin Smith would be like, since his films are all set in New Jersey, with blue collar folk, as well.
Randy 'The Ram' Ramzinsky is what his daughter claims, screw-up. But, he realizes it. So many of the characters in films, and people in real life, delude themselves into thinking they are things they are not. And it is this sort of strength that makes the film an 'adult' film, not Tomei's nudity (watch the scene where Randy heads down from the supermarket bathroom to enter the deli box, pauses, with the blare of a pro wrestling entrance theme playing, breathes, then enters to the silence of mundane work). More of this is needed. Perhaps Darren Aronofsky, if he's learnt the lessons of this film, can pick up the gauntlet that John Cassavetes tossed down a few decades ago, but which remains on American cinema's floor. If not, at least here's hoping he does not return to his earlier ways. If, instead of navel gazing masturbatory philosophy, a dose of blue collar realism (and no sport is more blue collar than pro wrestling) can work wonders for an artist like Aronofsky, imagine what it can do for the blue collars that watch it. Go ahead, try it, for a change!