So, last week I wrote how Sean Penn's work in Milk was the best acting I'd seen all year, which, at the time, was the truth. But notice how I said was just now. Though still tremendous work by Jeff Spiccoli, there's a new thespian job sitting atop all others now, one that I genuinely can't see being ousted by year's end. I'll be seeing Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tomorrow, and Leo DiCaps next week in Revolutionary Road, so jury's out on both, but still, doesn't seem likely. And Frank Langella is certainly great in Frost/Nixon, but as great as my new numero uno? Not even close.
If there's any justice in H-wood, the man standing on the podium come March, holding that coveted Best Actor statue in hand, will be none other than Mickey Rourke, because the stuff he does in The Wrestler is just about the bravest and most heartbreaking character-acting I've seen in a long, long ass time. He's on screen for a good 95% of the film's runtime, and those few rare moments when he's not, you're sitting there impatiently awaiting Randy "The Ram" Robinson's return.
By now, the "amazing comeback," the "resurrection" claims being hurled toward Rourke are infamous. The Wrestler knocked socks and shoes clean off earlier this year at the big festivals, sparking very early word of award noms and career resurgence by way of steroids. Once considered one of our greates, most promising on-screen magnets, Rourke went to hell and back throughout the '90s, squandering the promise shown in some fuckin' powerful performances (Angel Heart, 9 1/2 Weeks, The Pope in Greenwich Village, etc.....all great, I'll soon be revisiting all) and becoming a pariah in the biz. He's been inching to a rebirth for a couple years now (best part of the already-quality Sin City = Mr. Rourke), but this right here is the stuff that standing ovations and jaw-drops are made of.
Then
Now
"The Ram" was once the biggest pro wrestler around, selling out Madison Square Garden and achieving Hulk Hogan-like fame. But as time went on, his relevance depleted, and 20 years after his biggest fight ever (versus The Ayatollah, at the Garden), he's barely making ends meet wrestling in community centers and grade school gyms to small-but-packed crowds of loyalists. He's lost it all, including the relationship of his now-teenage daughter (played by Evan Rachel Wood, Marilyn Manson's ex-piece), and the only person who seems to give a damn about him when he's not in tights and bashing skulls is an aging stripper named "Cassidy" (Marisa Tomei, looking finer and MILF-ier than ever).
"The only place I get hurt is out there," says The Ram, pointing away from the ring and toward the reality that brings nothing but failure, loneliness, and grief. He hates when people call him Robin, his birth name, while heart attacks and steel chairs are tolerable as long as he's in that rope-enclosed square.
It's all about how this guy who loves to wrestle has to come to grips with old age, impending retirement, and the lack of family and true friends he's acquired over the years, replacing all such connections with his in-ring work. Certain scenes really packed a pile-driving force for me: 1) early on, The Ram's locked out of his shitty trailer due to the not-paying of rent, so he sleeps in his rundown van, sipping a big can of Coors Light, popping painkillers and staring at old photos of his glory days....it's sad and stirring, 2) a back-and-forth cutting of moments, where we watch a post-match Ram get stitched and fixed up as he sits quietly, hiding his pain from others in the locker room; we then keep cutting back to 15 minutes beforehand, when he was fighting a redneck-looking slob in a No Disqualifications match in some unattractive community center, taking staple gun-shots to the chest and barbwire smashes to the head, which all leads to a pretty devastating heart-attack in the locker room, and 3) The Ram invites a neighborhood kid to come play video games in his trailer, an old Nintendo wrestling game that features The Ram but is full of cheesy 8-bit graphics and boring gameplay; "This game is so old," says the kid, who then goes on to tell The Ram about the new Call of Duty 4---"Call It Duty?" asks Mr. Ram, totally disconnected from modern times.
The hardest scene to watch, though, is his breakdown at work, after his daughter has totally disowned him and Tomei's character has rejected his/her feelings for one another. To help keep a roof over his head, The Ram works for an Acme supermarket, loading boxes. But to earn some extra hours he's also taking weekend shifts behind the deli counter. When his breakdown hits, he's behind said counter. One customer recognizes Robin as The Ram and insists on identity confirmation, which sends Ram over the edge. He punches a meat slicer, slicing off a chunk of his thumb, shouts profanities and anger toward the stunned shoppers, and trashes the market on his way out the door. The whole meltdown happens in a split second, catching you off guard with uncorked fury. It's rough stuff.
Really, though, every scene here works, especially the tough exchanges between The Ram and his daughter, which go from "I hate you, dad," to "Maybe my dad can change, I hope he can 'cause I miss him," downward back to "Fuck off, you're dead to me." Ms. Evan Rachel Wood deserves a hand-clap, too; she reams into her loser father so fiercely and believably that I almost shed some tears (I'm man enough to fess up) watching him face her cold truth and disowning.
Darren Aronofsky, the film's director, wisely goes the lo-fi, quasi-documentary route, though this was probably due to a lack of big budget more than anything else. But it's such a perfect fit, gritty and raw. Aronofsky (dude behind the most depressing movie ever made, Requiem for a Dream, which I of course adore) kills it as a filmmaker, yes, but I think he's most worthy of applause for bringing such a powerhouse, hold-the-phones performance out of Rourke, a beast of an actor who simply needed the right push from somebody who truly believed he still has the "goods." Which he does, fucking thirty-fold.
Aronofsky and Rourke
Extra kudos sent to screenwriter Robert Siegel for not going the obvious "happy ending" direction, as well. In The Ram's eyes, it is a happy conclusion, but as an audience we realize that it's equal parts of tragic and noble, more than giddy and joyous.
The Wrestler is a flick I can't see myself shaking off for a few days, at the least. For Rourke, it must've been therapeutic, real, "this is my life on film" authentic---when The Ram gives his "I'm an old broken down piece of meat" speeches, you're basically listening to the painful confessions of Rourke himself. For me, the movie was a whole new kind of "visceral" experience, one where gore and disturbing violence are gone and the real world's battering and bruising of it's good-at-heart people is driven right on home.
If you see The Wrestler and aren't the least bit inspired and/or moved, then somebody should finish you off with a "Ram Jam."
[Oh yeah, and the film takes place in the middle-class sections of my beloved North Jersey. One of the strip club patrons even says he's from Garfield. How about that.]
***And this point must be brought back: Marisa Tomei is one of the sexiest actresses of all time. Tack on her underrated skills, and you've got a Hall of Famer in my eyes. For about half of her screen time in The Wrestler she's wearing nothing but a G-string, and her 44-year-old physique puts chicks half her age to unseasoned shame. End of story.
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