The Wrestler

The Wrestler is a movie about a professional wrestler 20 years after the height of his fame and how his life has been affected by his career choice.

Zaukul's Review
I really enjoyed the movie. I felt the strongest parts were the acting and the realistic nature of the wrestling scenes.

Watched on June 27, 2009 and rated 4.

Nuyhij's Response
The Wrestler could very well have been called The Wrestler and the Stripper. The film follows the life of wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson (played by Mickey Rourke in a performance well deserving of the universal praise he received), but it also presents the life of Pam, who strips using the stage name Cassidy (the talented and beautiful Marisa Tomei), as a counterpoint to Randy. The characters are superficially similar: both are performers whose bodies are their meal tickets. Both see their aging bodies affect their livelihoods. Randy suffers a career-ending heart attack, and Pam sees that her age turns away customers.

But this is where the similarities end. While Pam views her stripping as a way to make ends meet and identifies more as a mother to her young son, clearly delineating her stripper self and her "real" self as separate entities, Randy identifies as his wrestler persona almost entirely. Even when he tries to separate his personal self and his professional self, the lines become blurry. Heeding the advice of his doctor, Randy gives up wrestling and tries to eek out a non-celebrity living. Yet Randy cannot let go of his wrestler persona. In one telling scene, he complains to his manager at the supermarket about his name tag. It says "Robin," his legal name, instead of "Randy."

Rourke's character has been Randy so long that he does not know how to be Robin anymore. His tentative forays into his forgotten personal life, most significantly his attempts to mend his relationship with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), are initially successful but ultimately fall apart. Randy cannot be Robin because he has almost always been Randy. This raises the question of essentialism and constructionism: is an individual born a certain way, or is he shaped by society over time? The film does not give a clear answer, but it does show Randy returning to his wrestler self—or was he always essentially his wrestler self?—and participating in a match with his longtime rival despite his failing health.

The film ends with a tired, wheezing Randy, surrounded by screaming, adoring fans, climbing on top of the ropes for his signature "Ram Jam" move. So maybe The Wrestler is an essentialist movie: Randy is essentially and above all a wrestler. What you see is what you get, and the title in that case is very apt. This is a movie about a wrestler, and nothing more. It is not about the story of Robin Ramzinski, who happens to be a wrestler for a living. It is not about the relationship between Randy and Pam; in fact, he and Pam are miles apart in their views on selfhood. It is about a wrestler, and Randy and the figure of the wrestler are one and the same.

So the final shot of the film, an airborne Randy about to tackle his opponent, is a fitting end to this story about a wrestler. The audience does not know if Randy survives the match or not, and in a way it does not matter. We have already witnessed what matters the most to Randy. His place is in the ring.