The Wrestler (Aronofsky, 2008)

[fizz]

The visual virtuoso is back...and I can't fucking wait! Stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood.

A once hugely successful professional wrestler in the late 80's, Randy "The
Ram" Robinson now ekes out a living performing for diehard wrestling fans in
high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey. Estranged from his
daughter, unable to sustain any real relationships, Randy lives for the
thrill of the show, the adrenalin rush of combat and the adoration of his
remaining fans.
But, when he suffers a heart attack in the middle of a bout, Randy's doctor
tells him he needs to lay off the steroids and stop wrestling. For good.
Forced out of show business, Randy begins to evaluate the state of his life.
He tries to reconnect with his daughter and strikes up a wary romance with
an aging stripper, Pam. For a while, things work out.

But try as he might to resist, the pull of the spotlight is too much for him
and Randy attempts once again to fight his way back into the ring.

Visionary director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem For A Dream) presents a tale of
battered dreamers and undefeated losers, a powerful portrait of a hero -
despite himself and the odds stacked against him. A classic story of love,
loneliness and the inescapable lure of the arena.

[shariqq]

Yes, waiting for this one will be a task!

[shariqq]

Photos!

[X.]

This just won the The Golden Lion at Venice, making it the best film of the festival.

It's now guaranteed to play DIFF.

[shariqq]

Hurrah!! My first cinema experience for Aronofsky. I'm hearing such good things about Mickey Rourke's performance...

[kaytee]

Here is the poster...

[X.]

Please, please, please play at DIFF!

[kaytee]

A better quality poster...

[ozzylogic]

I bet it's gonna be pretty depressing.

[kaytee]

I bet it's gonna be pretty depressing.

It is moving, sad and will be depressing...


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/XGnO1oQk2_w&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/XGnO1oQk2_w&rel=1</a>

[raging]

Just before the end of the movie when Randy is going to the arena to compete in his comeback match which in all probability will end his life he reveals the most heartbreaking truth of his life.

'I get hurt out there more (pointing towards the world) than in there'(pointing towards the ring)

A life of a professional wrestler has to be the most thankless profession ever. A wrestler destructs himself every week, breaking bones, ripping veins only for the casual viewer to proclaim it’s all fake. Having been a fan of professional wrestling since childhood i have waited for a film that gave the professional wrestler its due and this is as close mainstream cinema will ever come.

After getting a bypass Randy tries to lead a normal life, takes a job at a supermarket, tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter, reveal his true feelings to a stripper whom he’s loved forever, but none of it works out.
Randy is not prepared for the life outside the ring he doesn’t know how to deal with people, how he ditches his daughter at a restaurant for drugs and sex with a underage teen is a prime example.

Randy lacks discipline because of all the bad habits he’s inhibited that comes along in professional wrestling so even when his heart and determination are in the right place to make an effort to straightened his life he fails.

The entire movie reminded me of Scorsese Brilliant boxing epic Raging Bull, both the protagonists are involved (and pretty good) in a violent sport but extremely meek and ill-equipped to deal with relationships which ultimately leads to there sad demises.

 There was a great scene in Raging bull when Jack LaMotta is thrown in jail and in a extremely gloomy prison and he keeps banging his head on the cell wall and keeps Yelling the words WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? Jack LaMotta had no answers then. Randy the Ram Robinson Knows the answer that’s why he has to go out with style, with one final personal moment, one final TOP ROPE SLAM!!!!

[fizz]

Every athlete knows that they have a shelf life. When their time is up, they’re no longer glorified like they once were and perhaps, just perhaps, their ego’s get bruised. Darren Aronofsky’s manages to tell a great story of the wounded journey attempted at seeking redemption, undertaken by Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a washed up, has been of the professional wrestling circuit from the 80’s. There have many movies about boxing, because boxing has always been considered a proper sport, but none so far about wrestling and for this reason alone, “The Wrestler” is an apt title for this film.

This is the kind of story that Martin Scorcese used to tell. It is raw, violent, and gritty but the characters are all derived from the purest of human conditions. Mickey Rourke as Randy is someone who is clearly washed out but doesn’t live in regret. He wants to move on and thinks he can by fighting one last time in a rematch of an iconic bout from his past, but life catches up with him; he suffers a post-match stroke, undergoes a by-pass and tries to reconnect with a daughter who wants nothing to do with him. He tries to live life outside the ring; by taking up meager jobs at supermarkets and pleading for work where ever he can find it. In a fitting departure from his usual style of visual panache, Aranofsky’s directs the entire film, and those scenes of Randy walking through his life in particular, with a Dardenne brother’s style handheld, that is distracting at first, but soon serves its purpose. The way the camera follows him throughout the film is how we’ve seen Wrestler’s enter the ring – with their back towards us.

Mickey Rourke’s performance is an astonishing display of physicality. He is athletic, bulky, tanned and appropriately crude, but like a gentle giant, you can see something loveable about him, despite his many displays of recklessness and vile behaviour. He buys his estranged daughter two presents, the second as a backup in case the first is rejected (which it is), he reaches out for affection to an aging stripper, who like wrestlers, are stuck in a thankless “career” – all of these gestures being more tragic than they have any right to be because we can see that for Randy none of these acts of adjustment work. He is a functional construct of his public image and he can’t escape it. Knowing who Mickey Rourke the actor is and how his career as an actor turned out, the film becomes an even more pertinent parable of not just sports, but the career of showbiz professionals that never make it.

Rating: 4.5/5

[madali]

The Wrestler (Aranofsky, 2009)
IMDB Link

I think like all 80’s boys, I went through a phase of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Michael Jackson, and WWF. That’s World Wrestling Federation, not World Wide Fund for Nature, which I didn’t care about as a child, and care even less about as an adult.

Like video games, I think the golden days were in those days. I don’t watch wrestling anymore and while my opinion is probably incorrect, I still like to think that wrestling isn’t what it used to be. I have fond memories of Hulk Hogan (of “Thunder in Paradise” and “Mr. Nanny” fame), Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake (he used to cut his opponent’s hairs after the match!), Iron Sheikh (he was Iranian!), The Warrior, and so on. I loved them all.

You then will understand that while a present wrestling movie wouldn’t have appealed to me, I do have a soft spot about a wrestler whose glory days was in the 80s. He is a washed out, has-been wrestler now, who has matches for a small wrestling federation with fewer audience, but he still enjoys it. It doesn’t pay the bills by itself, so he has to work during the week, and while lonely and sad, it does appear that even the weekly wrestling is enough to make it through the day.

When he has a heart attack and has to re-evaluate his weekend wrestling matches, he tries to fill in the gap by re-connecting with his daughter, trying to build a relationship with a stripper he likes, and to lead a steadier job.

He leads a sad life, but like Rocky Balboa, he seems to be good person, who unfortunately, seems to be good at one thing only. And when age takes that away, what are these people left with?

4/5

[shariqq]

Aronofsky is a director of repute, his name alone warranting any movie a watch. With all the Oscar-buzz surrounding The Wrestler and the universally-spoken rebirth of Mickey Rourke in a drama role as the movie's title character just makes this movie unmissable. The Wrestler manages to efficiently side-step those expectations, and yet deliver a wham to the senses with its intimate look into the life of a way-past-his-prime professional wrestler. Rourke embodies (literally) this ailing, lonely man with a heartbreaking honest performance; one that identifies with the loneliness and loss of identity that each one of us go through sometime in our lives. Aronofsky, whose past three movies have dealt with the subject of obsession, changes his visual style for The Wrestler - there are no crisp-clean shots or striking imagery in this film - yet reaffirms his mastery at intimate characterization. The film also features another great soundtrack by Clint Mansell, something of an Aronofsky's trademark now. Easily the best movie of the Festival yet, featuring one of the best performances of the year.

Rating --> 4.5 of 5

[shariqq]

ComingSoon.net: How do you shake off playing a character like that at the end of the day?
Rourke: You don't. You really don't. I mean, I don't stay in character all the time; I'm not one of those. But there are certain parts of it, you lose pieces of yourself with each role you do, some people anyway, and this one took a big chunk out of me.

Read the full interview here.