The Wrestler (2008)

“The Wrestler” (2008)

Twenty years past his glory days in the mid/late 80s, a wrestler (Mickey Rourke) struggles to make ends meet in New Jersey while wrestling on the weekends, taking illegal pain-meds, pursuing a dancer at the local strip club (Marisa Tomei) and trying to reestablish a relationship with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood).

This is an engrossing, but gloomy drama about the grim reality of celebrities from practically any field who are long past their prime; it just happens to be a wrestler in this case. People mock how fake wrestling is, but those talented guys bend over backwards to entertain the audience with incredibly painful stunts. The film was shot in the winter in New Jersey and this augments the bleak pall.

On the female front, Marisa is absolutely stunning as Cassidy (aka Pam) and Wood is convincing as the embittered daughter. Their relationships with the protagonist are a mixture of sweet, agonizing and moving.

The soundtrack features several quality songs from the 80s: "Bang Your Head," "Round and Round," "Balls to the Wall," "Animal Magnetism," "Dangerous," "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)," "Sweet Child o' Mine" and more.

The movie reminded me of 80’s metal star Jon Mikl Thor and the excellent documentary “I Am Thor” (2015) and, to a lesser extent, “Anvil: The Story of Anvil” (2008). While neither of these is as melancholic as “The Wrestler,” and “I Am Thor” is sometimes laugh-out-loud amusing, they both effectively show the grey reality of former real-life celebs well past their halcyon days.

The film runs 1 hour, 49 minutes.

GRADE: A-

Mickey Rourke is on top-form in this depiction of fading wrestling star "Randy". Once the talk of the tour, he has fallen on hard times. His body hasn't the strength or stamina it once had and after one fairly convincing pasting in the ring he decides it is time to hang up his loincloth. Whilst his professional life was full of glamour, testosterone and showbiz, his retirement is much less so. Still needing to work, he takes a job in a supermarket and all so he can eek out a living and hopefully establish a relationship with his long estranged daughter "Stephanie" (Evan Rachel Wood). When we are in the ring, this is an action-packed and entertaining film that illustrates well just how brief these folks' moment's in the sun can be, at how fickle the audiences can be and at just how little a dilapidated body (and soul) can be left with when injury and age impose themselves. I was much less interested in the slightly contrived, and predictable, familial melodrama into which this sinks in the middle, though. I found myself really disinterested in his love life - with the unconvinced "Cassidy" (Marisa Tomei), or in his attempts to repair his torrid relationship with "Stephanie". Luckily, that is but an intermission before the grand denouement that sees him in the ultimate grudge match against his equally aged foe "the Ayatollah" (Ernest Miller). The script is lively and frequently quite witty, the direction of the fight scenes captures well the physical endurance required by these athletes, but it also shows us that their job is to entertain us - not to actually kill each other! Rourke flips from the wrestler to the tortured father well here, and the film is well worth a watch.

What a film. It’s raw, heartfelt, and unexpectedly tender. Mickey Rourke's character, all battered pride and broken dreams, is a reflection of our own struggles, clinging to past glory while life keeps kicking him in the ribs. The themes of faded stardom, loneliness, and defiance really hit home. It’s not flashy, but it’s utterly gripping. Quietly devastating. I loved it.