Movie Review: The Wrestler

Three movies I’ve been looking forward to see since last year were The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons, The Watchmen and The Wrestler. Having seen all three now, I can say that I wasn’t disappointed by any of them. In this post I’d like to speak a bit about The Wrestler.

It was in 2007 that I stood in line at a fuel station tuck shop when my I caught the photo of someone on a People magazine. I was sure I knew this guy, but just couldn’t think who it was. So I browsed through the magazine to the appropriate article – it was about Mickey Rourke and he looked monstrous; too much plastic surgery gone wrong.

How sad, I thought. Too many bad choices and this is what he had become. I really thought his movie career had forever come to an end. And I probably lamented his decay, like I bemoaned all our decaying (aging).

Then, sometime last year, I read a great review of the movie The Wrestler; about a down and out wrestler trying in vain to retain his former glory. The reviewer wrote passionately about Mickey Rourke and how The Wrestler was an apt parable for Rourke’s own life; how only Rourke, the has-been, could really play this role of a has-been wrestler.

The Wrestler tells an authentic story; depicting life as it is – fairy tales don’t last. Things don’t always work out for the better. The joyride comes to an end.

The movie is very well directed by Darren Aronofsky whom also directed Requiem for a Dream (2002) and Pi (1998), Rourke acted fabulously (winning Golden Globe, BAFTA and other awards), the script is engagingly written, and the cinematography pulls the audience into the character’s world; in all, a splendid film well worth watching. A cathartic watch that’s not escapism.