A&E Review: ‘The Wrestler’
February 25, 2009
By Christopher Ray
A&E Writer
9 out of 10 - See it in the theaters
“As times goes by, as times goes by, they say 'he's washed up,' 'he's finished,' 'he's a loser,' 'he's all through.' You know what? The only one that's going to tell me when I'm through doing my thing is you people here. “ - Randy “The Ram” Robinson
Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) comes storming back into cinema with a brutal and honest film, The Wrestler. There is so much that- on paper- is mundane about this film. The story is of a washed up, has been professional wrestler, twenty years past his prime, who suffers a heart attack and is told the only thing he ever loved is now likely to kill him. He reaches out to his estranged daughter and tries to pursue a woman he has grown fond of; the only problem is that she is an erotic dancer, he a paying customer.
Photo by Fox Searchlight Pictures |
This film, however, views these otherwise typecast plot points with such humanity that it is a wonderful parable on life.
Randy “The Ram” Robinson transcends himself as an individual, and embodies the lost dreams and hopes in all our lives. We watch as he brutally endures a hardcore match, mixed with staple guns and barbed wire. He is tortured like Christ in the Passion, and the allusion to that is not even subtle. The erotic dancer he falls in love with, Cassidy, played by the wonderful Marisa Tomei, explains the passion to him the first time we see them together. This is not an idle reference. Randy is a sacrificial ram.
However, this film is not a Christ allegory; that is not the point of The Wrestler. An extension of that idea is that there is so much suffering in our lives-- and that is what this film is all about.
Mickey Rourke has taken a career and channeled every energy and concentration into a role written for him. This come back performance did not earn him an Oscar (as the Best Actor award went to the more than deserving Sean Penn) but it did prove this horse still has many days left in him.
At the end of the film, as the screen cuts to black, there are many places the mind wanders. My friends who had seen the film with me wondered about superficial plot points about what did or did not happen, but, in reflection, that is not the point. The point is that he made a decision to do what he loves, foregoing the consequences. He knew his role and he embraced it, arms open.
Robinson did not give up when the odds were against him, and only the strength of knowing what one was made for could hold up under the weight of such terrible, corporal suffering.
Consequences be damned, this boldness leads to true happiness. The happiness wrought when we embody what we are. Randy “The Ram” Robinson is The Wrestler.
