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'The Wrestler' shows that Mickey Rourke is no longer down for the count
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The Wrestler
If The Wrestler doesn't reignite Mickey Rourke's career nothing will. He delivers by far -- in a year jam packed with great actors in great roles -- the most emotional and truly real performance of the year. Any man who can hit on screen, both physically and emotionally, as hard as he does in The Wrestler should be considered as one of the top actors of their generation.
The fact that he does it in a film which on the surface is about amateur professional wrestling makes it all the more impressive. As the once great professional wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson, Rourke pulls out emotions that haven't been seen in a professional wrestling ring since, well, ever. The film rocks us through his lonely life of drinking, living in a trailer and punishing his body until finally he gets a shot at redemption not only in the ring, but with his estranged daughter and with love.
The love comes in the form of Cassidy (Marissa Tomei), who spends much of the film stripping and in various states of undress. As the only connection Randy has with another person outside of the wrestlers who slam him into the mat on an almost nightly basis, she easily falls into the stripper with a heart of gold category. Luckily the film itself doesn't fall into any categories, and so most of the characters, who could easily be ridiculous stereotypes, are in fact some of the most real and raw personalities caught on screen. How Rourke takes as much punishment as he does in the film (again, both physically and emotionally) is beyond me, but he must have dug deep.
However, director Darren Aronofsky doesn't seem to have followed his actors into the ring. Instead he shoots the film as a sort of outsider. He's the match's announcer, instead of a participant, and sadly it moves the viewer a bit too far away from Rourke and Tomei's performances. Aronofsky incessantly situates the camera behind Rourke's back as he is walking around, a shot that has its time and place but loses all meaning when done repetitively like in the case of The Wrestler. It seems Aronofsky spent all his time pulling emotions out of his actors and forgot that he had to pull it out of the camera too.
Then again, maybe it was just the straightforward nature of the whole film that really threw him. For an Aronofsky film, The Wrestler is just plain easy to understand and follow. The plot moves in a wondrously linear way, the character's emotions and actions are easy to understand and the direction and acting isn't buried under metaphor and double meanings. For some Aronofsky fans this may sound like sin, but I promise you that it is the simple straightforward nature of the film makes it all the more powerful and amazing.
Aronofsky's camera work doesn't really matter though. The Wrestler contains what is hands down the best performance of the year. This is reason enough to see it, no matter what one thinks about anything else in the film.
Recent Reviews: Gran Turino, The Spirit, Seven Pounds
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