A true artist is someone who can take something that is ugly and find a way to show the world that it is beautiful. Anyone can capture the beauty in beautiful things – the raw power of massive natural landmarks or a stuning sunset is present even in amateur photographs, for example – but to show something special in the dull and mundane moments of life, the slightly sad and dark times that fill in between the times when something is actually happening… that takes some real talent. I was never exposed to professional wrestling when growing up – I think there was a brief period that it was on television, but it was definitely treated as a novelty and had a bit of that Jerry Springer freakshow vibe to it – so I could never understand how people could treat this pantomime of sweaty men with any seriousness. You know it’s fake, right? You know they plan out who wins before each match, don’t you? I’m not alone in asking these rhetorical questions, but after seeing The Wrestler, I lost any drive to ask them. I finally got it.
Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is a professional wrestler, twenty years past the height of his career and struggling with his failing health, his estranged daughter, and just making enough money to make ends meet. The film follows him through pretty typical circumstances – wrestling matches, hanging out in a strip club, sleeping in his van because he hasn’t paid his rent – from a very intimate, over-the-shoulder couple-of-steps-behind point of view. The viewer is there with Randy, seeing everything from his perspective – how empty and lonely it is to realise you’ve passed your prime and what it feels like to be stuck in a time the world has moved on from, but also the brotherhood and cameraderie between his fellow wrestlers and the rush of being a hero when he enters the ring. The wrestling matches in particular are amazing to watch from such a close-up vantage, because while you get to see how every blow and hold is an act, you also see the exertion and strain the two players put on themselves to put on a good performance. The Wrester is a companion piece to director Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan – both are films about physical performers with an incredibly demanding medium, but while Black Swan is about the obsessive drive towards perfection, The Wrester is about the destructive path a person takes when the thing they love is the thing that’s destroying them. Randy the Ram’s only mutual love is wrestling, and he comes a little closer each match to killing himself just to hear the roar of the crowd. There’s something very ugly about that, but thanks to this film, there is something very beautiful, too.
sarcasmbeast 