The Wrestler

A pro wrestler (Mickey Rourke), long past his glory days, ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence wrestling in school gyms against up-and-comers who idolized him when they were kids. Rourke’s comeback film finds him greatly changed from his early movies (Body Heat, Diner); where once he was sharp-featured and quick, now he’s puffy and rigid, as immobile as a pile of rocks, but with eyes like two bottomless pits of feeling. How much of his performance is actually acting and how much is Rourke simply being what the years have made him is an open question, but his own past translates seamlessly into that of his character, and the role will no doubt define him for audiences from now on. Director Darren Aronofsky’s vérité style doesn’t quite drown out the melodramatic creak of Robert D. Siegel’s script.