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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The Wrestler

21:23 / 06.02.09

Good, bad, overated? your choice.

I thought this was an good and thoughtful film. Not a so-called return to form for Mickey Rourke, as miles away from his hey dey (Diner, Rumblefish, Angel Heart) but very different. For the first half I was enjoying it but felt Mickey Rourke was more a passenger to a documentary than an actor. For the second half I realised it was a very subtle performance that repaid my patience. I particularly liked the reflection between him and Marisa Tomei (as a pole dancer) as fading physial workers. Maybe heavy handed, but still powerful.

All in all, and with Aronofsky's confident and quality direction (am a big fan of Pi and Requiem) this was a powerful film.

Views?

19:11 / 08.02.09

Good.

I loved Mickey Rourke's performance which I felt was pitched perfectly, and the self written speech at the end was a great moment in film.

Aronofsky has proved that his talent lies not just in the flash of his previous films, something that I like but has led to criticism.

Marisa Tomei was also excellent and her acting talent alongside Mickey Rourke helped the performance motif that ran through the film.

Most importantly though this film hit me like a ton of bricks and left we teary-eyed at the end, the emotional resonance still with me a few weeks later.
I personally highly recommend it to anyone.

07:57 / 10.02.09

The soundtrack is absolute dynamite as well.

Without wanting to spoil anything, the piece of music playing at the dramatic climax of the film gave me shivers down my spine. Which, considering it was that particular song, surprised the hell out of me.

11:24 / 11.02.09

Marisa Tomei was also excellent and her acting talent alongside Mickey Rourke helped the performance motif that ran through the film.

Tomei's performance is indeed excellent. But her casting is a bit more problematic. She's clearly supposed to be a stripper on the wane, losing her tips to the younger girls. But, while Rourke is given the physique of a has-been wrestler, Tomei herself looks stunning! If strippers really did look like her, there'd be queues out the door. Which wouldn't matter if the film didn't otherwise have such a realistic feel.

But that carp aside, it's a great film - the anti-Rocky. I took it's point to the be thin line between narcissism and self-harm. The Wrestler would rather beat himself up for anonymous crowd acclaim than have one real person by him.

21:22 / 12.02.09

Hey Lucid; can't agree more re Tomei - but she was also pretty good too. Underused imo.

Whisky Priestess

14:09 / 13.02.09

A great film. And may I just say that I LOVED the bit with the shirts for Stephanie ... and of course the deli scene.

07:55 / 24.02.09

Despite the wrenching effect it had on me, I too loved this movie, and am looking forward to seeing it again on DVD.

One of the criticisms I keep reading of the film (and presumably among the reasons that it didn't receive a best picture nomination) is that other than Mickey Rourke's performance, the movie was cliched. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the word cliche, but I understood it to mean an element that had been used so many times - be it a character, a phrase, a camera shot - that it ceased to have meaning. To my mind that doesn't apply to The Wrestler. For example, the scene with the daughter at the seafront didn't feel like it was just there because these sorts of films have to have a tearful reconciliation blah de blah. It felt honest and purposeful. Cliches can be reinvigorated, if the person using them understands their meaning and power, and that's what I felt was happening in The Wrestler. That seemed to me how something as hokey and familiar as the opening riff to an 80s rock song can become a genuinely moving moment.

So I'd be curious to hear from any posters who felt that it failed to - er - [i]breathe new life[/i] into cliches and was simply a regurgitation.

Also, all other awards aside, it totally should have won for best cinematography, because at times it felt nigh on unbearably intimate.

19:59 / 06.03.09

I thought that! Things looked REAL in the film - the bar in the afternoon looked the way bars in the afternoon look, the woods during Rourke's early morning run looked the way the woods around the corner from my house look when you're out walking in them at six a.m. on an autumn day. That is rare in movies, and, I thought, worth rewarding.

Slumdog Millionaire had some imaginative shots, but the realism of the cinematography in The Wrestler, especially in such a glossy age as ours, deserved to be acknowledged.

12:55 / 18.07.09

Overrated underacted sub-par pap. But then again, that's Aronofsky. Let's fight.

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

10:54 / 24.07.09

didn't know what to expect going in (except for Mickey Rourke & something to do with wrestling) - as a result I wasn't disappointed.

I can't put my finger on what, exactly, made this film so engaging. The characters and incidents are all stock material from dozens of other, less engaging films.

I normally find flashbacks trite and unnecessary, but the scene where the wrestler and his opponent are sitting in the dressing room, with flashbacks to their match was well-paced, and particularly poignant.

(don't want to give away details)...

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

10:57 / 24.07.09

deja vroom:
Overrated underacted sub-par pap. But then again, that's Aronofsky. Let's fight.

Overrated? maybe.

Underacted? don't think so. The film would have sucked large amounts of unpleasant things if it had been overacted.

sub-par? are we comparing this to all films? because par must be around 19. I think this film is well under par.

pap? well, maybe. a bit. around the edges. maybe.

that's Aronofsky? I think so.

Let's fight? on the Internet? unheard of!

13:42 / 25.07.09

I like your style, mr. squib. Let's dance.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

04:39 / 27.07.09

Being a long time wrasslin fan, I was surprised at how much effort that went into getting it right. The stuff in the back felt like a real Indy show, the autograph show was particularly "real" in that I've been to signings like that, and the guys who show literally have no other way of making money.

But beyond the fact that it was about a faded star who can't give up the spotlight, it was also a great story about addiction. About how someone may want to climb out of it, but in the end, you can't give up the high, the crowd, the pain, they hope that there's always one more chance.

I liked it.

I have no idea what the hell else Rourke could DO with his career since he looks like a guy who's had the shit beaten out of him for 3 decades.