The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky's THE WRESTLER evoked many a memory for me. The most vivid one involved an actress friend of mine from long ago who endured a lengthy depression. So debilitating and defeating was this weight that she could barely function. The cause? The run of a stage play had recently ended. After months of auditions, rehearsals, and finally, performances, my friend had become part of a family that experienced all the peaks and vallies that come with communal dynamics. When the final curtain call was a memory, she and her family were scattered, on to the next reading and/or whatever would bring in a bit of income. So strong a bond had been formed that the aftermath was unbearable. Especially when there wasn't another family to join right away, another alternate world in which to live. Instead, there was the hard fluorescent-lighted reality of temp work or the refilling of coffee mugs for surly retirees. A world devoid of magic and even purpose for her. She felt she was dying. She tried to make the "real" world work, but it wasn't to be.

By the time we reach the climax of THE WRESTLER, we see that Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) has truly reconciled the same conclusion. For a hulking slab of a man who has made his living throwing opponents' heads against the ropes and headlocking them to the roars of fans, the cold (real) world outside the arena just doesn't cut it. Not that he doesn't make a go of it. He had a kid, now grown up, who pretends he doesn't exist. But as Randy confesses to her, he did the exact same thing prior. A child does not fit in the life of a showman.

Oh, it's a show all right. We eavesdrop on the wrestlers' conversations backstage, strategies of what moves to do at what time, what phony controversy to promote, before they prance out to their salivating audiences, the din of 80s hair bands shaking the halls. When the matches are over, there are are many warm faces, adulation from colleagues and fans alike. It provides a validation Randy does not find outside. But even in this subculture, when tedious signing expos are held, we see the real world creeping in. These guys, after years of untold abuse to their bodies in multiple ways, are sometimes seen with walkers and colostomy bags. Living hard will take its toll, as it's been said.

This movie also brought back some of my long forgotten memories of attending wrestling matches with my dad at a local auditorium in the 70s and 80s, the heyday for the sport, I believe. Later on, I even watched some of the WWF programs on Saturdays with host Gordon Solie. I remember the yelling and the rabid fandom. Even a folding chair or two being thrown. I don't recall plates of glass and staple guns as props for these hulks (as seen in a brutal sequence in this film). Maybe someone who watches Smackdown! these days can vouch for the authenticity of this particular scene. The Ram, long past his prime, still endures this abuse, and it nearly kills him.

Enter a bid for respectability. He seeks out his daughter. He opens up to a good-hearted stripper he knows. Heart attacks tend to make folks take notice. Mortality slaps 'em in the kisser and makes them try to seek what is really important in life.

But what is that exactly? A steady job? Randy mans a butcher counter, and does well enough until a customer recognizes him. Family? How can something that was never a priority suddenly become salvation? That real person left waiting doesn't wait forever. Relationship? No dice, especially when your beloved doesn't mix business and pleasure. Maybe he really is too much of a screw-up (er, something like that), as his daughter puts it. Maybe he really can't exist outside his rock-n-roll lifetsyle.

Robert D. Siegel's screenplay is a lesson in economy. We don't get one extraneous detail. Everything we need to know about the sad case of the wrestler is right there. When Randy's daughter, Stephanie, berates him one last time for not honoring a dinner date, it at first seems as if she overreacts. But think a minute. How many times had this scenario played out before? How many years? Stephanie castigates him even before this fateful error, but we have other clues. Randy hooks up with a groupie the night before, resulting in a one-nighter that probably mirrors the way Stephanie came into the world herself. We are never introduced to Stephanie's mother, and it doesn't take too much deducing that she was probably some 80s groupie, a faceless blur lost in a sea of booze and blow.

Randy does not learn from his history. So being, how can he have a successful realtionship with Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), the stripper who also lives in a show world? Though, unlike Randy, she vies for escape. Her glitter palace is a hellish, though necessary means to achieve a more desirable existence. This difference ensures their fate, even when Cassidy relents and tries to return Randy's affections. By this time, it is far too late. We gaze at Randy "The Ram" Robinson one final time, we see him about to launch off the ropes, headed toward his destiny. What that is, we can guess with some amount of accuracy. There is no questioning that, right or wrong, Randy is home.

THE WRESTLER is a stark, brutal and sad picture of loneliness, very well realized by director Aronofsky. It is his most conventional piece so far, a film that doesn't flirt with the avant garde like his earlier work. His approach here is just right-front and center. He lets the camera document, lets scenes go on longer than might other directors who always want to hit the end-of-scene "punchline." We watch Randy serving customers at the deli, the scene just playing out as if you were shadowing the guy. It felt almost cinema verite.

The screenplay is simple and all that is needed. It may seem like a pile of cliches, but again think of how elements connect. A clever plot or narrative is not pivotal here. Far more crucial is the acting, and Rourke is simply amazing. Few others could pull this role off with such (seemingly) little effort. I kept thinking of all the anguish this actor and former boxer must've faced in his days, even when his earlier acting career was humming. You see it in his worn physique, his tired eyes. Beaten. He's called The Ram here, but I think we got a good sampling of Mickey as well. Right up there on the screen. What an opportunity, to exorcise the demons through art. He's at home.

POSTSCRIPT: A minor quibble.

To the members of the 80s rock group Ratt:

What's up, guys? You wouldn't let the producers use your signature song "Round and Round" for that vital scene in the bar between Randy and Cassidy?! They had to hire some band called "Rat Attack" to do a cover? I knew it didn't sound quite right and the credits confirmed it. You coulda been on that kick-ass soundtrack with your former contemporaries Quiet Riot and Accept and others. For shame.