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Film Review: The Wrestler |
| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Nov 03 2009 |
The Wrestler
You know, I put off watching this one for ages. For a start, I’m not a big Mickey Rourke fan I have to admit: all that brooding intensity and method acting. Secondly, I’m really not a fan of Marisa Tomei. I know that’s not a popular stance but while I accept that she can be good, for instance, she was perfect in My Cousin Vinnie, I find her an over-actor. I think probably it was not a good thing for her to win an Oscar on her first major outing (in the aforementioned My Cousin Vinnie, 1992), I felt that she had never really developed as an actor.
Furthermore, I always find too much hype surrounding a film off-putting. Snobbery? Perhaps! But apart from all that, the story seemed such a dismal one that I couldn’t imagine spending an evening watching two actors I didn’t like in a story that seemed to be unrelentingly awful.
Funny how things work out. We had one of those nights when a dvd was the only way to go and it turned out that the only real option available was The Wrestler. (I think we even got out another film we had already seen and liked as a sort of insurance.)
Well, imagine my surprise and delight when it turned out to be wonderful! To say I was gobsmacked would not be an exaggeration!
It is a film of heartbreaking poignancy, beautifully played. Mickey Rourke is the eponymous Wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, who once was a big-time professional wrestler but is now old, injured, half deaf, suffering all kinds of physical pain from his years in the ring and steroids. He is reduced to playing small venues and worse, working in a supermarket to make ends meet.
Helping him to adjust to the painful realities of life after fame is Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) a lapdancer in a club Randy frequents. Like him, she is facing the prospect of ageing and being cast off from the only life she knows.
She encourages Randy to attempt to connect with his estranged daughter, whom he had neglected during his years at the top and also to give up wrestling for the good of his much-suffering health.
Director, Darren Aronofsky and writer, Robert D.Siegel, manage to avoid predictability and cliché and build a powerfully moving story of people struggling to keep their head above water. The seediness of their lifestyle and careers is counterbalanced by the gentleness of their colleagues. In fact, the most unpleasant person in the film is the supermarket manager.
All the cast is excellent but Rourke and Tomei are wonderful. Rourke creates a memorable character, far from the two-dimensionality you might expect. He is sweet and gentle, a decent person with little going for him in an uncaring World. He accepts what his life has become with a sort of baffled stoicism and a solid understanding of who and what he is.
Tomei’s Cassidy attempts heroically to deal with the indignities of her life with a kind of resigned desperation. She underplays this beautifully. Evan Rachel Wood also deserves mention as Randy’s neglected and bitterly angry teenage daughter.
This is a heart-achingly poignant film, celebrating the nobility of People, even life’s so-called losers and despite the subject matter, manages to leave you uplifted. I heartily recommend it.
Last changed: Nov 03 2009 at 1:42 PM
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