Do You Smell What The Rourke Is Cookin'?

Rating: 7/10 (3 February 2009)

The underdog and the comeback are the staples of the sports movie genre, from The Champ to Rudy, even Mr. Baseball, and The Wrestler is no different. However, this time, the plucky challengers fighting against the odds and one-time heroes looking to get back on top are the off-screen stories, rather than on.
Mickey Rourke plays the wrestler in question: a washed-up, battered one-time 80's icon considered past his prime by anyone who cares to remember him, a character so close to Rourke's own real-life story of a career self-destructed by drugs, fights and bad decisions that almost from the beginning of the film, the line between how much of the performance is an act and how much is real becomes blurred. You will have heard a lot in the media about his comeback role as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a former professional wrestling star now working for a pittance on the independent circuit, forced to live in a trailer park and make ends meet by manning the deli at a supermarket, and it is well deserved, but if you're looking for an equally uplifting story on-screen, you've come to the wrong place. Although Randy dreams of one day stepping back into the ring for the big leagues, this ain't no Rocky. Randy is a "broken down piece of meat", not a contenduh, and there isn't much in the way of character arcs or sentimental scenes of triumph or overcoming adversity, but that is what one should expect from director Darren Aronofsky, he who directed the unrelenting, freaky- deaky Requiem For A Dream.
If Rourke is the comeback, then Aronofsky is the underdog of this particular sports-movie cliché. After the critical mauling that met his criminally misunderstood The Fountain, he seems to have dismissed the overly cinematic flourishes and visual embellishments that have marked his work so far and gone in the complete opposite direction, creating a small, low- budget character study, with the focus being on the atmosphere and sense of place, and it is this aspect in which The Wrestler scores on every level. His hand-held camera follows Rourke from shabby school gyms and grubby community centers to seedy strip joints (where Randy meets his favorite stripper and the only person who understands him, Cassidy, played winningly and with great naturalism by her of the perennial heart-of-gold, Marissa Tomei) and, of course, into the wrestling ring, which is captured perfectly. As Rourke and his fellow wrestlers (all played by real-life independent professionals) leap off ladders into barbed wire-tables and bounce off the ropes into a body-crunching move from their opponent, you can't help but pity them. Randy's limited self-worth and belief that it is all he can do have driven him to this. The authenticity that Aronofsky captures works wonders in enhancing Mickey Rourke's already moving performance, but to his credit, Rourke never allows the film to become a downer. It may seem like an easy performance for him, as Randy is characterized by the grotesque physical features (the swollen face, the leathery, fake-tanned skin) that define Rourke himself, but with his self-deprecating sense of humour he comes across as a likable chump while a lesser actor (such as the studio's terrible first choice for the role, Nicholas Cage) may have used the excuse to emote and "act".
However, not everything operates on this level. The script, in particular, is predictable and contains some awkward moments (particularly when Randy goes and sees his estranged daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood who, to her credit, almost overcomes the clunky dialogue written for her). The story is merely a stage on which to display Rourke and Aronofsky's work, but even the director himself makes some bad decisions. When Randy walks through the back of the supermarket, about to walk through the plastic curtains onto the deli counter, did we really need the dubbed-over crowd noise to understand the parallel between this and Randy walking backstage at a wrestling show? However, such faults are minor compared to the film's achievements. Randy The Ram may be a "one-trick pony", but The Wrestler is definitely a contender.
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