The Wrestler

For this week, I watched number 202 on the top 250, The Wrestler. Now, I had already seen the last scene of this movie when I was on vacation a couple years back, I walked by as my sister was just finishing up watching it. I was pretty excited to get the chance to put some flesh around the ending I'd already seen, which I thought was pretty good.

Mickey Rourke, giving the performance of a lifetime.
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The basic premise of The Wrestler is that we follow Mickey Rourke's character, a professional wrestler called "the Ram" who has long passed his prime. He suffers from all the abuse his body has taken over the years, and a doctor tells him he needs to stop wrestling or he will face severe consequences. We follow the Ram's trials to fit into normal society, his attempts to connect with his daughter, and his love advances towards a stripper.

First things first, Mickey Rourke is absolutely fantastic as the beaten-down wrestler. You forget you're watching a movie and start to truly consider Rourke to be the Ram. It reminded me of a biopic, because it seems so real. I read that Nicolas Cage was going to be given the role, and I think we can all thank the heavens that didn't happen (nothing against Cage, but he hasn't been in a great film in a loooonnnnggg time). The line that got to me most was when the Ram was talking about how hard it was to cope with life away from wrestling. He said, "The only place I get hurt is out there. The world don't care about me." I thought, among other powerful lines, this quote made The Wrestler transition from just a good sports movie, to an incredible overall film. We can all on some level connect with transitioning to an unfamiliar part of the world and recognize how difficult it can be.

For some reason, I did not become as emotional involved to The Wrestler as I thought I would. There were many scenes where I would usually be bawling, but I held it in this time. Not sure what it was, but I felt the emotions all the same.

Worth your time.