The Wrestler - A ballad of human suffering and redemption

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2009)

Best Picture 2009 Watch Current mood: artistic Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
The Wrestler - "In this life you can lose everything you love, everything that loves you. A lot of people told me that I'd never wrestle again, the only one that's gonna tell me when I'm through doing my thing, is you people here." - Randy "The Ram" Robinson
The Wrestler was the film I was most excited to see this movie season. From one of my favorite directors (Darren Aronofsky) this movie has received close to universal acclaim from critics all over the world, lauding its unique story, unique characters and the performance of one man many thought would never return to the screen, Mickey Rourke.
Whenever an actor/actress is so praised over a role I am normally skeptical, this is one important exception. 20 years ago, Rourke's entrance into Hollywood was lauded by critics. With films such as Diner, Body Heat and Angel heart pointing towards a lengthy and successful career, which was to be short lived. His rather eccentric lifestyle and unreliability on the film set cast him into the black list. It wasn't until the film adaptation of Frank Millers comic Sin City was he welcomed back into the Hollywood circle, and now he delivers another outstanding role as Randy "The Ram" Robinson.
Only once has a man been so tortured, brutalized, heartbroken and redeemed as Randy, and that was Jesus, in fact one scene makes a reference to the suffering of Jesus. In the sequence, Randy and his opponent (who mysteriously resembles a Jewish man, please don't hurt me!) undergo the most arduous and raw torture I have ever seen in film. The ring is adorned with barbed wire and glass, The crowd is jeering, there is blood on the ropes, and Randy reaches his breaking point. After leaving the ring a team of medics swarm over him, cleaning his wounds, removing the pieces of wire and glass from his tired and blood drenched skin. The man is broken, and could go no further.
It is after this point that major changes are made in his life. Forced to abandon wrestling for his health, he begins to accept life outside the ring. He takes a full time job at the local supermarket deli (a role so humiliating and close to me that I can really connect with Randy and his position, because nothing sucks more than the deli), rekindles his relationship with his estranged daughter, and and furthers a bond with an aging stripper (an almost unrecognizable Marisa Tomei) with whom he has strong feelings for. However life in retirement creates a gap inside him, and the call of the ring beckons him.
All of those on the screen give outstanding performances, and I will be truly disappointed if they don't all get some recognition from the academy. Marisa's performance of Cassidy is a story happening all over the world. Single mothers having to work in degrading professions to support themselves. Like Randy, she longs for something as well, a new life and a new start for her child. Evan Rachael Wood plays Stephanie, Randy's abandoned daughter. Her character is torn between her hatred of her father leaving her and her commitment as he attempts to reconcile with her.
Darren Aronofsky is one of my all time favorite directors. His other great project "Requiem for a Dream" was another story of hardship, loss and tragedy. However, "The Wrestler" gives the audience something more, it gives us a view into the life of a man who believed he was forlorn from the world, but we know that this wasn't true. In one scene with his daughter he talks about his loneliness "I'm an old broken down piece of meat and I deserve to be all alone, I just don't want you to hate me." What I can say is this, he was not alone. When he took to the ring, and peered out to the cheering fans surrounding him, he was in a world that accepted him, and he well and truly belonged. 10/10