The Wrestler (2008) *****

Do you remember watching wrestling 20 years ago on the weekends. The flashy names that graced our screens as outlandish characters appearing to us like mythic gods, chiseled and bearing incredible strengths in fierce competition. All of those guys are missing from TV now (minus a handful that still whole on). The Wrestler is a look at one wrestler's life 20 years after the cameras decided not to care anymore.

Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was one of the greats, fighting for the title at the Garden and various venues throughout the country. But that was decades ago. Today Randy is way behind the hill as he wrestles in school gymnasiums and Legions for small amounts of money against guys that were in diapers when he was on top. He works during the week unloading trucks at supermarket all the while living back in the glory days of 1988, coming to the ring to Guns N' Roses and wearing colorful spandex tights. He still has his fans. But they're only there when he's The Ram. Outside of the squared circle his life is empty. His only interaction is with the neighborhood kids and a local stripper calling herself Chastity (Marrisa Tomei) whose own personal doe prevents her from getting closer to the Ram than she wants to. She does help him establish a relationship with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) who has sworn of her failure of a father.

The thing about The Wrestler is watching how Randy's life has been wrapped into his work. As a wrestler he is in total control of the match as he fills his persona to the glee of the fans around the ring. He is a hero, but when he goes out into the real world he just can't get anything right. He tries to mesh the two worlds together, but that fails him. No one loves him for him in the real world. The only affection he gets is as The Ram, not as Robin ( his real name). This isn't Rocky. This is just one guy who is struggling to keep the one thing that still gives a shit about him: his fans. I'm not one to quote lines in reviews, but one really struck me as the whole thesis of the film. When the Ram is about to go out for a match he turns to Chastity and referring to the real world he says:

"The only place I get hurt is out there. The world don't give a shit about me."

It is a damn shame that Mickey Rourke did not win the Oscar for his portrayal of Randy. I won't speculate on why he didn't win but I found his work far superior to Sean Penn in Milk (which is saying a lot because Penn was magnificent). Rourke's real life allows for us to see Randy's (and Rourke's) hard rode journey on his face. He's hypnotic as Randy, leaving the viewer unable to look away from this beaten down man who sees the world as an interference between matches. It's the role for the ages, to be remembered as Rourke's best role and up there with some of the greats of cinema. Marissa Tomei is also great as Chastity, who in the beginning seems to be a young and sexy stripper but as the film progresses also feels the end of that hill that Randy's experiencing. She seems to age on cameras, not by the way she looks but by her maturity and the growing feeling she has for Randy. Finally, Evan Rachel Wood has the daunting task of riding a roller coaster of emotions that her father puts her on every time he shows up and lets her down, which is a triumph in the small amount of screen time she receives.

Darrne Aronofsky starts the film out with a documentary feel, but we soon realize that it's mainly for the wrestling sequences where low budget camera work goes hand in hand with the low budget situation that Randy's in. You feel like you're with the real deal and that shaky eye that follows him goes away when Randy enters the real world. Why? Because no one gives a shit about Randy at a strip club or shoveling egg salad. We want The Ram. Aronofsky delivers a poignant piece that when you get right down to it is a middle aged mortality tale. This is how when man deals with that age where he feels worthless to the world.

When I heard about this film I just assumed that it was going to be a tale ala Rocky about a washed up athlete's rise from nothing. What you really get is Raging Bull for a wrestler without the rise to the top. Most of that is covered in the credits. What The Wrestler does is goes to the end of the fall and asks the question "Now what?". Randy "The Ram" Robinson could be anyone who's too old to do what they love but they don't know how to do anything else. They feel almost crippled by the concept of losing the one thing in their life that has any meaning and this film exhibits that to a tee.