The Wrestler (2008)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Aging wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson is long past his prime but still ready and rarin' to go on the pro-wrestling circuit. After a particularly brutal beating, however, Randy hangs up his tights, pursues a serious relationship with a long-in-the-tooth stripper, and tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter. But he can't resist the lure of the ring and readies himself for a comeback.
26 connections found
View:
26 films that influenced The Wrestler
What critics say influenced The Wrestler
The film’s genius is in its subtleties, which combine to make it more than just a “Rocky”-style underdog drama.
Public interest begins with the do-or-die of the mans very participation, a last chance at redemption not unrelated to the ancillary vibes of what Rocky meant for its writer and star.
Gritty, blue-collar US sports films were a genre unto themselves in the 1970s, from John Huston's 1972 boxing melodrama Fat City to Sylvester Stallone's 1976 breakthrough role in Rocky and the vastly underrated hockey flick Slap Shot with Paul Newman in 1977.
Screenwriter Robert D. Siegel’s script — which touches lightly but significantly on "Rocky" and "The Passion of the Christ" — is unvarnished, conversational and free of clumsy exposition.
If you've never seen, for starters, the "Rocky" movies or "Requiem for a Heavyweight" or "Somebody Up There Likes Me" or "Raging Bull," you might be forgiven in thinking "The Wrestler" was an original.
In its own tough-love way, the movie is as sentimental as "The Champ" or "Rocky."
With a sober humanism reminiscent of John Huston’s Fat City , The Wrestler poignantly submerges itself in the nooks and crannies of sports’ minor leagues, even as its traditional narrative arc—Randy risks life and limb for autumnal glory, woos Cassidy, and, in the film’s clunkiest subplot, reconnects with estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood)—pushes slightly too hard with Christ-like undertones that imagine Randy sacrificing himself for our sinful entertainment.
Gritty, blue-collar US sports films were a genre unto themselves in the 1970s, from John Huston's 1972 boxing melodrama Fat City to Sylvester Stallone's 1976 breakthrough role in Rocky and the vastly underrated hockey flick Slap Shot with Paul Newman in 1977.
Aronofsky and writer Robert D. Siegel obviously know John Huston's Fat City (1972), which is one of my favorite sports films The Wrestler, though not as stellar, has much in common with it.
The pathos of personal ruin is an established trope, and the trick, as demonstrated by John Huston in “Fat City” and by Martin Scorsese in “Raging Bull,” is to stop it from sliding into the sentimental.
And in recent years there have been some excellent ones too, including Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (a little off the subject of boxing, but close enough), Ron Howard's Cinderella Man and David O. Russell's The Fighter .
To be sure, it isn’t the WWF equivalent of boxing-film heavyweights such as “Raging Bull” or even “Million Dollar Baby.”
The pathos of personal ruin is an established trope, and the trick, as demonstrated by John Huston in “Fat City” and by Martin Scorsese in “Raging Bull,” is to stop it from sliding into the sentimental.
Whats more, hes possessed by Martin Scorsese: Honesty and grit suffuse every shot, whether the cameras following Randy through the belly of a supermarket (à la Goodfellas) or capturing, in dispassionate closeups, the real blood spilled in fake wrestling matches (à la Raging Bull).
If you've never seen, for starters, the "Rocky" movies or "Requiem for a Heavyweight" or "Somebody Up There Likes Me" or "Raging Bull," you might be forgiven in thinking "The Wrestler" was an original.
Siegel's screenplay is reminiscent of everything from early 60's teleplays like Rod Serling's "Requiem for a Heavyweight" to the urban angst of 1969's "Midnight Cowboy," and yet its symbolic paralleling of its subject to Christ, its cynical gaze at the modern marketplace and its extreme violence modernize it.
Advertisement
In a chat, she looks at the scars on his body and recommends that he see the movie The Passion of the Christ.
Screenwriter Robert D. Siegel’s script — which touches lightly but significantly on "Rocky" and "The Passion of the Christ" — is unvarnished, conversational and free of clumsy exposition.
Friendless, estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), he frequents the local "gentlemen's club," where an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei), eyeing his scars, tells him he ought to see "The Passion of the Christ."
Hoping to cheer up her favorite customer, Cassidy advises him to see The Passion of the Christ: "It's amazing.
In an early scene, Cassidy compares The Passion of The Christ — a Mel Gibson movie, but Scorsese made his own film about the cross — to Randy’s frequent scourgings.
(She describes The Passion of the Christ in awe: "They beat the living fuck out of him for two whole hours and he just takes it."
What’s more, he’s possessed by Martin Scorsese: Honesty and grit suffuse every shot, whether the camera’s following Randy through the belly of a supermarket (à la Goodfellas ) or capturing, in dispassionate closeups, the real blood spilled in fake wrestling matches (à la Raging Bull ).
With his long, dyed-blond locks and ravaged face, he looks like a creepy cross between a crazy Gorgeous George and Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame .
But once everyone sees the movie — which is like The Champ if Jon Voight listened to Mötley Crüe, had his own action figure, and occasionally let another man in tights shoot him in the chest with a staple gun (it is to the movie’s endless credit that this scene is actually moving) — that’ll change fast.
Advertisement
Subtle direction from Aronofsky, responsible for the equally brooding Requiem For A Dream , enables this stunning central performance to reek of authenticity and rank alongside Marlon Brando's iconic turn in On The Waterfront as one of the most staggering portrayals of masculinity ever witnessed.
Gritty, blue-collar US sports films were a genre unto themselves in the 1970s, from John Huston's 1972 boxing melodrama Fat City to Sylvester Stallone's 1976 breakthrough role in Rocky and the vastly underrated hockey flick Slap Shot with Paul Newman in 1977.