The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler is a moving drama with a familiar story and an unusually convincing man at its centre. Randy, played by Mickey Rourke, is an ageing wrestler whose working life has become difficult to separate from the damage it causes him. Robert D. Siegel’s screenplay asks what remains when a person has given so much to a job that punishes the body. The answer is sometimes too neatly arranged, but Aronofsky gives the physical business of wrestling enough attention to make the question worth asking.

Rourke gives Randy a friendliness that keeps the performance from settling into a long request for sympathy. The humour matters: we can understand why other people might enjoy his company, even while seeing the trouble he brings with him. We were moved by the uncertainty in Rourke’s eyes during the private moments, when the confidence needed for wrestling no longer seems much use. He lets Randy look embarrassed by his own need for affection, and does not hurry to make that embarrassment attractive.

Maryse Alberti’s cinematography gives the wrestling a rough, documentary-like immediacy that suits the effort involved. The bouts are difficult to dismiss as mere play-acting when the film makes their physical cost so evident. Tim Grimes’s production design helps the New Jersey settings feel like places where people work and get tired, without inviting us to admire the hardship. The lack of polish is useful here: Randy belongs to these surroundings, and the wrestling never feels detached from the rest of his working life.

Andrew Weisblum’s editing gives Rourke’s pauses room to register, a sound choice for a performance that makes hesitation so revealing. At 109 minutes, the film can accommodate Randy’s exhaustion without feeling slow. Clint Mansell keeps the music understated, a sensible choice when Rourke’s face is already so expressive.

The weakness is Siegel’s handling of the second chances. The encounters involving Randy’s daughter feel too clearly assigned to show the consequences of his failures, and the writing gives us less scope to discover anything unexpected about him. Marisa Tomei’s Cassidy and Evan Rachel Wood’s Stephanie also leave us wanting more of the people beyond their importance to Randy. Both actors bring feeling to a story that keeps directing our attention back to the same man’s unhappiness.

As a sports drama, the film gets considerable force from making bodily decline its starting point. We are accustomed to training and punishment being presented as steps towards an achievement; here, carrying on is itself troubling. Aronofsky handles that uncertainty well, especially in the wrestling, where the pleasure of performance survives alongside the visible strain. He is less assured when the private life starts fitting the expected pattern of regret and attempted repair.

There is no need to enjoy wrestling to find this worth an evening. Some tolerance for physical punishment will help, as will a willingness to spend time with someone whose problems are partly his own doing. Save it for a night when there is no urgent need to be cheered up.