Given my (mostly) strict rule of limiting my 2009 list to all new movies seen in theaters that year, there are some that are going to be hard to remember at this very late date. Two of them take the top spots, so don’t blame me for keeping the soliloquies on these great films short.
15 months after I saw this movie, what I can remember the most that makes this film close to timeless is the emotional impact of this character based story and the complete perfection of Mickey Rourke’s performance. More remarkable is that this was Directed by Darren Aronofsky, who had previously made the movies Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain in a hyperactive uncompromising style that signaled broader and more bizarre stories in the director’s future. I can’t put my finger on the thin thread of consistency between these movies, but I think The Wrestler is such a reality-grounded and performance-based story, that the ambitious filmmaker of great skill just has to adapt his camera movements and narrative leanings and fold it into the dynamic character’s journey while staying true to the film’s working-class setting. What might be a conventional story about a ‘broken hero’ who tries to make good, in turn becomes a powerful and intimate film-watching experience, especially in the interesting interplay between the masculine posturing of professional wrestling and the flawed fragile men behind the sport.
A movie like this should have served as an indie film curiosity for me, but it really tugs at your emotional strings. It especially impacted me by raising the question of whether receiving appreciation of what you’re good at is more important than whether those skills or qualities significantly improve your life or those of anyone else close to you.
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