What’s the deal with professional wrestling? Darren Aronofsky’s film doesn’t really answer this question, but it does provide a wrenching character study of one wrestler, Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke), as he ages past professional relevance. Randy has no money, few connections, and very poor health. Brought low by a heart attack after a particularly taxing (and gruesome) bout, he reaches out to his crush, Pam (Marissa Tomei), a stripper and single mom. Pam convinces him to contact his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), and he does so, briefly managing a heart-breaking and ultimately futile reconnection.
The Wrestler is particularly about the life of its main character. Beyond that, it is about the desperate fates of those who make a living entirely off their physical bodies. Randy is famous, but not rich, and as his body fails him, his entire personhood crumbles. Pam, who, contrary to Randy, earns money but not respect by using her body, finds her situation ever less lucrative as she ages. When Randy steps away from the wrestling ring, he loses his identity and his self-worth, constantly insisting that strangers address him by his working name. Conversely, Pam struggles to detach herself from her profession. She objects to forming personal alliances with customers who think of her as truly embodying her working persona, Cassidy, and is only herself when outside the club, with those who have no idea what she does.
Like many films, this one crams all its most difficult to watch scenes into the first half hour or so, and many viewers probably won’t make it past them. I never understand why films do this – they barrage the audience with visual pain before earning its interest or trust, and then ease off into 45 minutes to an hour of quiet, lovely character study once everyone’s parents have huffed to bed in disgust. Mostly, this film is all about the acting: Rourke, Tomei and Wood are excellent, each one of them somehow managing to constantly telegraph intense and wringing inner pain without being too overdramatic.
The question I am left with after watching this movie is, why the hell does anyone enjoy wrestling? The Wrestler won’t enlighten you there, but you will find out why suddenly everyone enjoys watching Mickey Rourke again.
