Lacks Genuine Character Development And Depth

Rating: 4/10 (22 May 2009)

Like Milk, which competed with it at the Oscars in the same year, The Wrestler is a character study without any genuine character development.
Mickey Rourke plays washed-up wrestler Randy, but I don't think he was doing any real acting. He was playing himself. To make matters worse, Rourke fails to attempt anything new. All we get from his "performance" is something we've seen hundreds of times before. A broken man who cannot accept the fact that he's not in the spotlight anymore.
The film, like its main character, is a giant cliché. And it's a boring cliché. Even the subplots carry on in the same sad tradition. One involves Randy's desperate attempt to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Of course, things don't go so well because she thinks he's a "total jerk". Any of this sound familiar? Here's the bottom line. If you're going to make a movie with clichés, at least try to do something different. The Wrestler, I'm sorry to say, does not.