The Wrestler Is A Harrowing And Brutal Tale Of A Man Unable To Function In Reality

It's a pity that, in the decade since The Wrestler was initially released, Mickey Rourke seems to have vanished almost as quickly as his comeback arrived. After having major supporting roles in two 2010 movies that cracked $100 million domestically (Iron Man 2 and The Expendables), he did Immortals and Sin City: A Dame To Kill For and has otherwise been relegated to B-movie fare that, at best, will end up in the direct-to-video bargain bin. Finally seeing The Wrestler for the first time makes such a turn of events feel truly tragic given the massive amount of talent the guy exhibits in the lead role of this Darren Aronofsky directed motion picture.


Rourke plays the lead character of Robin Ramzinski who goes by the stage name of Randy "The Ram" Robinson. Twenty years prior, he was a wrestling phenomenon with a signature move (The Ram Jam) and a large enough pop culture presence to warrant a video game made about his wrestling exploits. But the years have worn on and the bruises in the ring have taken a great toll on his body and the world of wrestling has taken an even greater toll on his psyche. The guy just can't operate outside of the glamorous fantasy world that his wrestling career creates. Why should he step into reality and confront painful emotional problems when he can just embrace the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd?

A heart attack leads him to put his entire life into perspective though, especially since his doctor tells him that continuing to engage in wrestling or other particularly strenuous physical activities will likely result in him dying. He decides to make money by spending more hours behind the deli counter at the supermarket that he already does part time work at and also tries to patch things up with his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). There's also an exotic dancer at a local strip club he frequents by the name of Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) who he may just have developed a little bit of romantic fondness for, especially after they spend time together doing some clothes shopping for Stephanie.

It's easy to see how this premise could have been used for a conventional inspirational sports story, one where some schmaltzy easy life lessons are given to Randy by way of him making all of the personal problems he has in his life right. But The Wrestler is a far more realistic movie than that, one that intends to examine exactly what it must be like to spend so much of your life under a fictional persona separated from any semblance of reality. Hewing closer to reality means Robin doesn't come off as an overly abrasive personality in his initial scenes, on the contrary, he seems affable and the kind of fellow people would be able to interact it with ease, thus explaining why he's been able to secure so much regular wrestling work over the years.

But there's a difference between making small talk with agents and telling them what they want to hear and actually making deep human connections and it's here that Robin finds himself incredibly adrift. He's a guy so used to the world of the ring and garnering unconditional love from the crowds at these sporting events that the idea of engaging in more complicated emotional interactions with other people leaves him floundering. That's why Cassidy's understandable rejections of his romantic infatuations hit so hard for him; after decades of solely interacting with other wrestlers, sponsors, and groupies, he's not used to being turned down, he's not used to these more complicated facets of engaging with other human beings.

There's a similar sense of tragedy in his inability to reconnect with his daughter, who's portrayed as being very much in the right for her haunting declaration of telling her father that "I don't love you, I don't hate you, I feel nothing for you." The very act of trying to exhibit the bare minimum of humanity and kindness does not inherently make Robin a sympathetic character as it might have in another movie, rather, the screenplay by Robert Siegel uses his failures in these situations as a way to demonstrate just how far gone he is as a person. Robin may be good at picking staples out of his body but when it comes to respecting the wishes of others or committing to another person, he's just not up to the task. A man who looks like he could accomplish any physically demanding task on the planet turns out to be weakest of all when it comes to living in the real world.

Siegel's screenplay does a wonderful job of creating such this haunting tale of a man who can only exist in the world of make believe, with his script having a lot of subtle touches that really enhance the overall experience. For instance, notice how there are no flashbacks to past matches or familial strife in Robin's life. The lack of flashbacks allows us to only know the past in this movie by way of the many ways Robin clings to it both mentally and physically. Director Darren Aronofsky was a wise pick to helm this particular tale, particularly in the way he visually depicts both stomach-turning sequences of brutality in the wrestling ring and emotional turmoil, there's a similar sense of evocativeness to them that emphasizes the torment the characters are going through.

Of course, while Siegel and Aronofsky turn in excellent work here, this is very much Mickey Rourke's show and boy howdy does he ever kill it in the lead role. Robin is a man stuck in the past in a tragic way and Rourke pulls no punches (no pun intended) in depicting his character being more comfortable with being bashed with a chair rather than deal with his inability to connect with other people. It's a haunting turn and both Evan Rachel Wood and especially Marisa Tomei compliment Rourke with similarly devastating performances. With both Wood and Tomei, you can fully get the individual pain the characters are going through with Wood's character struggling to figure out what to do with her absent dad being back in the picture while Tomei struggles with Robin's affections towards her that could jeopardize her job.

I love how the turmoil these two go through is given such thoughtful treatment by both the actors playing these characters and in Siegel's writing. Really, The Wrestler's ability, as a movie, to thoroughly examine this internal agony of its character in a manner that refuses to offer up clear-cut resolutions is one of its absolute best facets and that's noteworthy considering how there's plenty of elements in here worthy of high praise. The Wrestler an incredibly harrowing movie, particularly in its bleak ending that really does end the movie on a perfectly unpropitious conclusion (one that serves as an amazing showcase of the acting talents of both Rourke and Tomei) that feels oh so right for this tale of being so immersed in fantasy as to make reality something you can never correctly interact with.