The sacrificial Ram

A case might be made that pitch-perfect pain and suffering on the screen are the hallmarks of great method acting. If so, Mickey Rourke brings more to the table than any other actor working today.

It is nothing if not welcome news to find that Rourke is back in the good graces of Hollywood after a long hiatus. His return to glory - an Academy Award nomination, Golden Globe and BAFTA awards and critical acclaim aplenty - is due largely to the dogged persistence of director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi), who stuck by his troubled star in the face of resistance from his investors, wrapping The Wrestler on a relative shoestring when he could have had serious studio backing with another actor as his lead. It would be an understatement to say that Rourke earned Aronofsky's loyalty, adding nearly 50 pounds to his already meaty frame and exposing the ghosts of a lifetime spent chasing myths of hyper-masculinity.

In any case, Aronofsky knew his man, and Rourke has given him a performance so convincing and empathic that it makes the film's overall failure all the more disappointing. As a document, The Wrestler is high art. As film, however, it amounts to so much gratuitous flagellation.

Rourke's Randy "The Ram" Robinson is all martyr, and from the word go Aronofsky delights in detailing his sufferings. As with his earlier films, the admittedly talented director sets his hook early, engendering sympathy in his audience and then twisting the figurative knife for the remainder of the picture. One needn't be squeamish to resent being party to a pain festival lacking even a modicum of redeeming thematic development or psychological insight to justify itself. Aronofsky's world view is fatalist to an almost farcical extent. His single, recurring theme seems to be "Everything is horrible and everyone will suffer" - which may well be true if you're trapped in the cinema watching one of his films, but it leaves a lot to be desired in the way of storytelling.

We pick up with our tragic hero as he is winding down a life misspent in the bizarre world of professional wrestling circuits. Even as his body begins to fail, forces conspire to deny him dignified options for retirement. So he marches through his own personal version of the Stations of the Cross in what soon becomes Aronofsky's thinly veiled variant of a passion play.

The Wrestler almost approaches the level of a parable about the indignities of growing old, except that Aronofsky turns a series of potentially touching metaphors into blunt caricatures, with no interesting characteristics apart from their one-dimensional dreariness. It is positively unrelenting; Aronofsky is either a mild sadist, a myopic cynic, or both. Gray-haired former wrestlers nod off in their wheelchairs or lean pathetically against their canes as they wait for autograph-seeking fans who never appear. Meanwhile, The Ram resorts to life-threatening steroids in a futile attempt to drain every last pathetic drop from the dregs of his so-called career.

Allusions to martyrdom are expressly implied throughout the film. Each time the Ram executes his signature move - standing above the crowd on the top ropes in the corner of the ring, arms outstretched, quivering with pain - he crosses the line from the garden-variety suffering soul to a stand-in for the Lamb of God himself. When the aging stripper played by Marisa Tomei begins quoting directly from The Passion of the Christ during a post-match lap dance in the V.I.P. room, the whole affair devolves at last into an embarrassing misuse of two talented and committed actors.

There are some astonishing moments. When The Ram tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter after he suffers a heart attack in the ring, his self-loathing and desperation are simply breathtaking. "I'm an old, broken-down piece of meat," he explains, "and I deserve to be all alone. I just don't want you to hate me." Such earnestness is quickly wasted, however, when The Ram blows off dinner with his daughter for a one-night stand with some drink-besotted trollop. It could be a metaphor for the film, or at least its central image.

Similarly wasted are Rourke's considerable gifts. It's a testament to his abilities that he can hold an audience in his sway despite a flat script and a ghoulish director.

Nicolas Cage reputedly turned down the role, and, whatever you think of his acting, the prospect of sitting through 111 minutes of that overused actor doing variations on a theme of Hulk Hogan-cum-Jesus of Nazareth only further enhances one's appreciation of Rourke's work. Like the character he portrays, Rourke is used and abused in the name of cheap entertainment.

It's all of a piece. Tomei's stripper is unconvincing. Rourke's wrestling is unexciting. And Aronofsky's directing is unimpressive.

James Walling can be reached at
jwalling@praguepost.com