Arriving with a slam onto the canvas, Aronofsky delivers one of the films of 2009.

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2009)

The Wrestler takes both a pretty well worn premise and a pretty familiar narrative and does what mostly all impressive film-makers and films alike do: breath new life into them. Nobody begrudges The Wrestler its down and out set up that it incurs onto its lead, nor do they begrudge The Wrestler for its narrative arc that leads us down a route which will usually end with a climactic fight of some description. In The Wrestler, director Aronofsky renders these situations and events more interesting than they ought to be by way of a scuzzy and low-level aesthetic which compliments the raw and pent up feelings and emotions many of the characters we focus on possess. The film is a real outsider look; a glance into the life of a guy on the fringes as he partakes in some pretty shocking activity and attempts to get by in whatever manner he can. In short, it's a really exhilarating and emotional experience.
The lead is Mickey Rourke's Randy the Ram, otherwise known as Randy when he isn't being referred to by his stage name. Randy was a big wrestler in the 1980s; big enough to have his name and what barely resembled his features by way of a few dozen pixels in an old, 1980s video game console wrestling game. He had a lot of fans - still does; and fought in a lot of big, high profile matches. Years later, he still operates on the circuit but at a much lower level. Rourke plays Randy pitch perfectly in regards as to whether he still enjoys wrestling as much as he used to. He sits, motionless in the locker room prior to fights contemplating whatever, while money is a problem as he balances a job in a convenience store during weekdays. Whether the drive is still there or not, the first instance of wrestling we're treated to in the film sees Randy kept until the last match so as to build to something – the fans haven't left and are still there, everyone still loves him and wants to see him win his match.
Aronofsky shoots his lead, for the early duration, from behind at about head level. We rarely see Randy's face during the opening dozen minutes or so in what resembles a sort of third person video game perspective. Aronofsky does reveal his subject, but it's only at the times he is degraded or humiliated that we are able to look at him; the first instance of which is a reverse shot on some stairs when his boss at the shop insults his wrestling profession. The second is after a long tracking shot along the grounds of the trailer park in which he lives during which when he requests re-entry to his locked trailer from his landlord but is rejected due to late rental money. Randy turns around and, in what feels like an interior self-awareness of the camera on the character's behalf, faces us. The refraining from showing Randy's face early on apart from during these 'let-down' events aids Aronofsky's approach of creating a raw, very frontal and very exposed study of a man on the minorities and further aids in the alignment the audience will have towards him.
The event that calls into question Randy's own opinions on life, the universe and everything occurs shortly after one of the more brutal, unflinching sequences in a film from recent memory; so brutal, in fact, that Aronofsky shows us the results of said sequence prior to, and in tandem with, a wrestling match which involved all manner of sordid weaponry and gadgets. But in actuality, Randy comes off a little more worse-for-wear than he'd have liked, and his weekend profession of leaping, slamming and bashing other big, bulky men is called into question following a heart attack shortly afterwards. Randy's only confidant, or indeed person he even communicates with on a regular basis that isn't of the negative ilk, is a certain Cassidy (Tomei); a stripper at a local club who becomes more and more involved in his life outside of the seedy place of business Randy has often frequented in the past. That said, their first interaction with one another sees her berate him for scaring off a potential group of clients as Randy's inability to read situations and connect with what's going on between human beings is ably reinforced, when he interrupts a group of men seeking out a private dance with her when things appear to have gotten a little heated. "200 bucks just walked out" she bellows. Recent critical readings of her own body acting as a means of entertainment or as a 'service', like Randy's as a wrestler, are made apparent here.
The film brings to mind some of the writings from some years back about Hollywood and their attitudes towards their lead characters' bodies, predominantly in the action genre. The Wrestler sees its lead's body put through a similar physical grinder, one that sees it beaten, tested and pushed to the point of extreme. But the film brings these writings down to a lower, more visceral, level - we feel some of the pain with these wrestlers, and we certainly feel Randy's poor health infused pain. The film's crowning glory is in the form of the scene in which Randy meets up with his previously distant daughter named Stephanie (Wood), and they revisit a now decrepit old seaside funfair they used to frequent. She talks of the now burnt out ghost train, and how she found it truly frightening, although enjoyed going back in for some more. The sweetness of the scene lies within the fact that, no matter how much she previously despised him, she has at least inherited one aspect from her father: that sense of going through the grinder; through all the anguish and through the pain barrier, but in a perverse sort of way, enjoying it - all before coming back for some more.