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The Wrestler
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Beautiful woman Marisa Tomei. |
To his credit, Darren Aronofsky is one of the few talented directors this decade who stuck with so-called art films. There were a handful of decent low-budget American films ending the 90s and starting the 00s, and then all the talent got bought off. The auteur-types opted for more money and exposure. This decade in film was defined by luring the promising filmmakers to comic book films, which made blockbusters about the only thing watchable. Imagine Stanley Kubrick directing Batman!
The talent exodus toward money strangled the promising renaissance in highfalutin films. Now, due to the overwhelming badness of art films in general, stuff like Aronofsky's The Fountain and Charlie Kaufman's Synecdote, New York die sad deaths, commercially, no matter how decent they are. "Where is that arty theatre again?" Never been there. An art film is where you can succeed and fail at the same time. Why bother taking the risk, anymore?
Art films, good or not, don't make much money without weird momentum investors and studios simply can't fit into an Excel sheet. So they've given up on them. Shocked, dazed, walking out of the execrable and incomprehensibly critically blown Little Miss Sunshine, I'd given up on them, too. I alarmingly enough was forced to side with America, in all its mediocrity: gimme somethin' I can unda-stan'd. Nothin' too sissy, neither.
The Wrestler has gained a little momentum, now, maybe since it short-circuited the sissy dilemma. After The Fountain flopped, Darren Aronofsky listened to America and got smart. The Wrestler is a brilliant marketing concept. You can't get guys to watch low-budget drama because feelings feel gay. So you send your drama about feelings in a Trojan horse of masculinity: wrestling. Then you just do the Lost in Translation shtick, and men can feel like men.
The film is not exactly great, but Aronofsky makes it watchable. The Wrestler couldn't be that great. Its unambitiousness is its defining characteristic. It's exactly what you'd expect from the (good) trailer. Watching the trailer is very nearly as good as seeing the movie. In this climate though, "watchable" is high praise indeed. Forget Mickey Rourke: can watchable low-budget films make a comeback?
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Looking hot for your 40s. Maybe I'll get married
someday, to
a girl like this. So much superficiality, it exasperates my soul, older-but-still-hot .jpg of Marisa Tomei! Maybe two people could just fall in love, and really be happy together, as long as both of them could stay hot like you. |
The titular washed-up wrestler is "The Ram" (Mickey Rourke). He lives alone in a trailer, his glory days long gone. He still wrestles for small crowds. He goes to strip clubs. He has a heart attack. He has an estranged daughter. He wants to bang Marisa Tomei. Forget the spoiler alert. That is The Wrestler, and that's it. Imagine that done with a talented director and great actors. Or just watch the trailer and have done with it.
It's all well-shot and decent, but a little boring. One thing that prevents this movie from being exceptional is simple Lost in Translation syndrome: a protagonist who doesn't speak much. Unless you're going 2001: A Space Odyssey Cinematic, or have engaging circumstances and plot, neither of which apply here, the words characters say are important to the film. The less plot and Cinematic flair you have, in fact, the more the film hinges solely on words characters say. While we don't expect a washed-up wrestler to be especially eloquent, it's a hindrance to making the film excellent. Even Rocky just wanted to go the distance, and said so. We don't know much about the Ram. We can guess, and there's a place for the strong silent type, but it's certainly not in a movie where almost nothing happens.
There's some strong bits in this film. Aronofsky manages to present the dynamic between The Ram and his daughter ambiguously. Is the Ram's daughter a parody of Stuff White People Like white girls with daddy issues, or to be sympathized with? She dates a black lesbian and explodes tearfully I can't do this anymore! I never want to see you again! I don't want to hear you!" It's enough to give you flashbacks to real-life relationships with crazy, self-important white girls. Considering her father just had a heart attack, what a bitch, you think, but then again she has a right to hate The Ram for abandoning her when she was growing up. It's just the daughter so excruciatingly reminds you of a theater person, a truly vile creature. So you're left with that senseless, conflicted, hateful feeling real life gives you, like Aronofsky turned into money-shots at the end of Requiem for a Dream.
Marisa Tomei , very naked in the film, is a bit underdeveloped, although her posterior has been perfectly developed by several Hollywood personal trainers. There's a very slight tinge of noxious morality in the portrayal of a stripper who's really just "a mommy," but it's nothing that makes you want to puke. This is a plausible character. The bit player wrestlers and promoters are all convincing and interesting to watch.
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My-Cousin-Vinny era Marisa Tomei. |
The wrestling scenes themselves are the closest the film comes to real greatness, giving the spectacle of men pretending to fight that metaphorical resonance people who watch French movies like. And since it's wrestling, it'll entertain the rubes simultaneously. Aronofsky was real smart on this one, and I hope he stays away from Superman Begins or whatever. You can pretend like you're solely committed to the art of film, but with art films as atrocious as they are, you still need an extraordinary marketing hook just to get people to watch them. They've been burned too often by lifeless, boring tripe masquerading as profundity.
Still, as advice to struggling low-budget drama directors: not talking doesn't make you deep or profound. It makes you boring. If you're just going to film people being people, have them say something interesting. Although now thinking about the success of Juno, perhaps shutting the fuck up was preferable after all.
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