The Wrestler
The other evening my wife and I took a break from our marathon through the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series to watch Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Wrestler. The movie stars Mickey Rourke as a professional wrestler 20 years removed from his glory days and Marisa Tomei as a stripper struggling to compete with the younger employees. Randy “The Ram” Robinson and Cassidy sell their bodies for people’s carnal appetites, but age and other things have taken their toll on business and their happiness. Randy has an action figure of himself on his dashboard, but he frequently has to sleep in his van because the trailer park manager has locked him out of his home.
The Wrestler is an existential film, one I’d likely show if I were teaching a class on Existentialism. It’s a harsh look at a man who may be running from or embracing who he is—we’re not sure. At least, I wasn’t sure. Despite the loss of prestige, Randy continues to wrestle in less than glorious settings, subjecting himself to punches, staple-guns, barbed wire, self-inflicted razor wounds, and whatever else pleases the audience—the people he considers his only family. He works part-time at a grocery store to help pay the bills, but while he shows up for work, he’s never really there. A heart attack midway through the film pushes him away from wrestling into retirement, at least for a while. Continuing his violent passion will probably kill him. So says a doctor. And when meager exercise takes a huge toll on Randy, a man used to being smacked around with ladders, he knows and we know the doctor is right.
Aronofsky shows us Randy’s decisive return to the ring, but not whether Randy’s return kills him. Whether Randy lives or dies isn’t really the question. The question that most interested me was whether Randy’s return to wrestling signified despair or hope, a flight or an embrace of his identity. He’s willing to die doing what he loves and being with the people he believes love him, but he’s, well, willing to die, to give up on life, a possible life with Cassidy. He makes a decision at the film’s end to forsake a potentially real relationship for a moment’s stardom. He seems happy with his decision, but I couldn’t help but think he could have been much happier. I wonder if Randy could have been someone other than the wrestler. I’m not sure. He didn’t think so.
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I’ve yet to see the film, but do you think he represents self-love, when he chooses his own glory instead of what might be better for him and others?
Good question, Henry. Someone who keeps an action figure of himself probably suffers from unhealthy self-love. However, I wouldn’t say that his climatic decision was for or against this self-love because this self-love could have been a motivating factor for his choosing either option. He was, to be sure, someone who loved others. I think he genuinely cared for Cassidy, for his estranged daughter, to an extent his fellow wrestlers, and definitely his fans.
Kyle,
I am inclined to think that Randy’s return to wrestling was ultimately an act of despair. It occurred after his (temporary) rejection by Cassidy and his failure with his estranged daughter. I believe that even with Cassidy’s unexpected “showing-up” at the end , he still held on to his sense that he could amount to nothing more that a wrestler.
Good point, Mark.
In the film Randy lead a sad life. As probably many do in our country. Living in a trailor park. Hardly able to pay his bills. He once had glory days where he was a star and made money and was at the top of his game. But he grew older and things changed and he had to maintain an existance that let’s face it, he was too old to continue on doing as he was aging. He couldnt have remained a wrestler and with no other skills, what kind of work would he have had? Would it have brough him as much happniess as his old wrestling days did? He had to take drugs (like steroides) to keep his body looking the park. The steroids were a terror on his heart. He knew this all too well and so did his doctors. SO yes, it was despair. He gave up and lost the most important thing a person can carry inside of them. HOPE.
Without hope and the idea that he could be happy and find happiness in this world, he decided that he would go out and wrestle once again, even though he knew it may likley kill him.
It was like watching a train wreck coming a mile away. Very similar to watching your friends go down the road of a drug addiction, where they keep on using even though they know it’s killing them.
Even though there were people in his life worth caring about even more so then himself, he just couldnt see it, and just wasnt willing to put the time in and hang in there and make it work out.
Hope is a very important outlook to carry in one’s life. It was a really sad movie in my view.