Film worthy of the hype

Rating: 10/10 (20 May 2009)

To get the perfunctory out of the way, yes the Rourke performance is everything it is hyped to be. His turn as Randy "The Ram" Robinson is outstanding, moving, and incredibly authentic. Marisa Tomei also does a terrific job and looks just wonderful.
That said, what makes this film so touching and affecting is the authenticity with which Aronofsky captures the life of a professional wrestler. What you see here is not the lifestyle of the current stars of the WWE. Rather, you see what becomes of the former superstars, as well as what the would be future stars of the sport have to endure. Rourke is a broken shell of the athlete he once was. Working 250 nights per year, many wrestlers wind up with painkiller addictions as they struggle to perform through the accumulation of minor injuries that build up during this grind. The overwhelming majority supplement their natural musculature with steroids. Rourke's character, we are to assume, has been abusing these drugs illegally for decades. For reasons like this, there is an unnaturally high rate of early deaths among professional wrestlers, many dying in their forties and fifties. Moreover, the fans of today's pro wrestling are all the more fanatical, not sated until they see someone attack another man with a folding chair, a fluorescent light bulb, or a staple gun.
Rourke's wrestler is in many ways a good man who has been broken by his career. Aronofsky does a brilliant job of immersing the viewer in the day to day life of Rourke's wrestler by his constant use of over the shoulder shots that follow our protagonist around. We see that in most cases the Ram makes good choices and lives a decent life. His only obvious failing is in his ability as a father.
In my honest opinion, the father/daughter storyline was added for dramatic grist for the mill. It is touching when their relationship seems to be blossoming, but it is derailed all too spectacularly and unrealistically climactically. (Sorry for the glut of adverbs there) The truly dramatic relationship in the film is between Rourke and Tomei, who has to struggle with her obvious sympathy and fondness for Rourke's character and her sense of professionalism, which she uses as a kind of barrier of legitimacy between herself and her profession. These two actors have a real sense of chemistry that is often lacking in popular film today.
In sum, I thought this movie was wonderful for a variety of reasons. The acting was absolutely top-notch. The dramatic narrative was enough for virtually anyone to identify with and support the protagonist. Further, as someone with intimate knowledge of the lifestyles of professional wrestlers who haven't made the big show, I appreciate the sympathetic, but more importantly realistic, depiction that the director has captured here. Absolutely fantastic film.