The Wrestler (2008)

Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson was a name in wrestling, a contender with a following and prospects; but all things do not last and Randy’s career was not one of them. Now, thirty years later he still ekes out a living across the US at signing events and wrestling road shows.

Wrestling is almost everything Randy knows, but there are other things that move on the periphery of his life. One is a local stripper (played by Marisa Tomei) and the other is the daughter he almost never knew (Evan Rachel Wood). Reaching a point of no return Randy must discover whether his mistress is really the ring, or whether there is more to life.

The Wrestler works as a perfect companion piece to director Aronofsky’s “Black Swan”. Both films centre on the very same themes and ideas, though they deal with them in very differing ways.

Any true review of The Wrestler (or indeed any of Aronofsky’s films) would take a lengthy essay to do it any measure of justice. Watch it, think about it, and be drawn into Aronofsky’s version of our world; a place as real as ours but somehow darker and more magical to boot.