Quite possibly the best film of the year, The Wrestler dropkicked me right in the dick, but also, the heart. It has moments with all of the visceral, holy-crap-did-I-just-see-that appeal of Nic Cage in the bear suit or Samuel Jackson getting eaten by the shark in Deep Blue Sea – and not just ridiculous moments, but moments that feel ridiculously true. You leave the theater feeling as charged up as if you just watched Rocky but without needing a lobotomy to believe the story.
The song Bruce Springsteen famously wrote for the film plays at the end when it fades to black, with The Boss singin ’bout three-legged dogs and one-trick ponies and cats on a dead end road that got shot in the eyes with a pellet gun. Great song, but it’s almost unnecessary. This movie is a Springsteen song. It’s greasy, deep-fried Americana, and it’s f-cking delicious.
Mickey Rourke plays washed-up 80s wrestling sensation Randy “The Ram” Ramzinski, who’s sort of a cross between Bret Michaels and Randy Macho Man Savage (constantly addressing fans as “brother”). His daughter hates him, he can barely afford the shitty trailer he lives in in the greyest most depressing rustbelt stripmall shithole armpit of New Jersey, and every weekend he drives his van (a Dodge Ram van, make sure you catch that) to a high school gym or V.A. hall to ply his trade, a trade which involves a bizarre pantomime of hand-to-hand combat with other muscular, sweaty, nearly naked dudes in front of cheering crowds of weirdos who know it’s fake but love it anyway, and who are the closest thing The Ram has to friends. Unless of course you count his favorite stripper Marisa Tomei, whose career is in similar decline and to whom The Ram is desperately trying to cross the boundary between friend and customer (I recommend cocaine).
The Ram is just about the perfect character, both for Mickey Rourke, and as a sort of allegory for Americana and the business of entertainment. Alternately tragic, ridiculous, and hilarious, with his health failing, The Ram refuses to let go of his pathetic, rockstar vanity as we see him bleaching his hair, buying steroids, laying in the tanning booth, lifting weights, and constantly preening in front of the mirror. And not for a second is any of it boring. He’s dedicated his entire life to the schlockiest, most unsubtle, most transparently escapist (and we’re talking escapism at any cost) form of entertainment around: pro wrestling, which in and of itself is hilarious. And yet it’s all imbued with that sense of AMERICA: F-CK YEAH! It’s-a-bullshit-illusion-but-we-love-it-anyway guilty pleasure. Because what’s The Ram’s alternative? Working a shit job in a shit town at a grocery store deli counter with no friends. Think about that as it relates to our love of bad entertainment. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Watching The Ram work the deli counter is hilarious in a forehead-slapping sort of way, as are nearly all of The Ram’s interactions with the world at large. He’s unfailingly earnest but completely out of touch, like your embarrassing-but-entertaining drunken uncle, and just self-aware enough that when he makes an ass of himself it BREAKS YOUR GODDAMNED HEART. The film wouldn’t work at all if the character didn’t have such dopey charm.
And The Ram’s love interest, the stripper? She’s a real stripper. Not the Hollywood cliche, lingerie-wearing supermodel dancing to Beyonce for businessmen in suits on a lacquered table, I’m talking an always-topless, pierced, aging (though she still looks amazing) single mom spreading open her asshole for off-duty longshoreman stripper. Hollywood tries to do small-town America a lot, but rarely this well. The strip club feels real and so do the wrestling scenes. Watching The Ram pull staples and tacks and glass shards out of his back and cut himself on the head with a razor blade is graphic and almost grotesque, and that’s the way it should be. And all so some freaks in a high school gym in Dubuque can get a momentary distraction from their horribly depressing lives. How could you not love the guy?
There are so many priceless moments that it would be impossible to cover them all, but I’ll give you just one. After Rourke finally persuades Tomei to have a beer with him, they’re at some fake wood-paneled dive bar, and they start singing along to “Round and Round” by Ratt. And they don’t start at the chorus either. Rourke starts grooving along to the song and eventually Tomei gets into it, and then the audience too, and all of a sudden you’re thinking, “Hey, this sounds pretty good. Wait a second, is this Round and Round by Ratt?” And 30 seconds later you find yourself actually humming along to a f-cking Ratt song. I loved this movie. Darren Aronofsky has come a long way since Requiem for a Dream and cheesy film-school gimmicks.
Grade: A+