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There are many parallels being drawn between Rourke and his character – Randy “The Ram” Robinson – but the fact is they are easy to make. Fame and fortune from the heyday of the ‘80s has dissipated, with Randy now wrestling on the weekends in between loading boxes at a supermarket, while he lives in a trailer park. One telling line in the film seems to be coming as much from Rourke himself as it is from his character – “I f***ing hated the Nineties.” Rourke’s real-life scars from his own boxing career add physical weight to a character that Rourke infuses with regret.
Waking up in hospital after a heart attack, Randy is too weak even to arm wrestle the nurse trying to calm him down. He is forced to deal with the things in his life that he has neglected, among them his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). On the advice of a stripper he befriends (Marisa Tomei), Randy tries to rekindle his relationship with his daughter, but as one can imagine his reappearance isn’t exactly greeted with enthusiasm. These two characters, seemingly the only women in his life, are played with confidence by Tomei and Wood, despite being given relatively little to do.
Director Darren Aronofsky doesn’t shy away from the grim reality of the wrestling world. We see Randy inject himself in the buttocks with steroids, highlight his bleach-blond hair and use tanning beds, trying to recapture his past glory. Every scar on Randy’s battered body is visible as the doctors remove staples from his skin after a fight. This is no WWF, this is raw, and there is certainly no glitz or glamour.
The same can be said for Aronofsky’s direction, a stripped-down style that at times feels almost like a documentary. There is no overbearing soundtrack of wrestling anthems, and where they appear they are used as part of the story, not to overwhelm your senses. The intimate hand-held camerawork conceals nothing, exposing every detail of Randy’s life, good and bad. There is humour along the way as Randy tries to reconnect to the outside world, but there is something inherently tragic about the character. This is beautifully realised in one scene, as Rourke sells wrestling merchandise along with other retired wrestlers, all of whom are shadows of their former selves.
While the story is good, the film hangs on Rourke’s performance. Luckily for all involved then that Rourke is outstanding, and the main reason to watch this film. So, will that little gold statuette already be standing on his mantelpiece as you read this? After witnessing this, one certainly hopes so.
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