The Wrestler (2008)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Movie review
From Time Out New York
Can a movie as modest as The Wrestler, wrapped up in spandex, sweat and a stolen kiss to Ratt’s “Round and Round,” be 2008’s best? The year certainly hasn’t lacked for grandeur (or at least size), but consequence has been in short supply. Here, finally, is a film that, through its very intimacy, touches on love, money, dreams and death in a way that will pile-drive you through the mat. The pounder is one Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Rourke, in an astounding career revision), once a 1980s superstar, but now plying his cash-poor trade in smelly veterans’ halls in Jersey. The body’s seen better days, but the hair, a peroxide mane, remains brilliant, and the spirit is willing.
The original script by Robert Siegel, a former editor-in-chief at The Onion, could have coasted on the comic anachronism of this Reaganite warrior, but it courts risk, putting our hearts in our throats. It sends Randy two angels: a seen-better-days stripper (Tomei, fearless), who, for a moment, awakens in him a dream, and a bitterly estranged daughter (Wood), who may yet be his salvation. Siegel also throws the Ram a stroke and double-bypass surgery. As the camera sweeps the wintry Asbury Park boardwalk, The Wrestler takes on Kazan-level poetics, the big man suddenly seeming small and fragile. Who is the magician of such a spell? Darren Aronofsky, nearly a goner with his ludicrous The Fountain, rebounds as strongly as Rourke; if you want, you can sift out his preoccupations with cosmic metaphysics in this compliant sufferer and fallen saint. But the special effects here are human ones, thrilling and tragic.
Author: Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out New York Issue 689: December 11 - 17, 2008
User reviews of this film
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- JOB said...
- Posted on Dec 17 2008 02:43 Agreed. Mickey Rourke gives an iconic performance; should edge out Sean Penn for the Best Actor Oscar. Fantastic. Aronofsky and Rourke are back.
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- Harold said...
- Posted on Dec 16 2008 16:14 This review has been featured at THEWEEK.com as Best Opinion - Great review!
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Cast & crew
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, Mickey Rourke, Judah Friedlander full cast
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R
Duration: 109 mins
US Release: Dec 17 2008
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