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If there was one word you could use to describe the 2008 Academy Awards, it would have to be “predictable.” So many of the major awards were pretty much shoo-ins going into the big telecast, that I can understand why even die-hard movie fanatics were only half-heartedly interested in the outcome. The one category that I had at least a glimmer of hope for, however, was the Best Actor race between Sean Penn for his role in Milk and Mickey Rourke for his big “comeback” performance in The Wrestler. While Penn was the odds-on favorite to win and ultimately did walk away with the Oscar, I really thought Rourke had a fighting chance to nab the coveted award and prove to the Hollywood establishment that he was finally back. Of course, I felt the whole “comeback” campaign was a bit overdone, especially when considering that Rourke had already appeared in films like Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City and Tony Scott’s Domino. (Both directors also notably used Rourke in their previous films, too.) But since “predictable” is what the Oscars are all about, they had to once again honor Penn for a role that, to me, bordered on outlandish while overlooking Rourke’s much more layered and intimate performance.

That being said, director Darren Aronofsky’s acclaimed The Wrestler is far from a perfect film. But its bare-bones, low-budget style certainly make it one of the most authentic profiles of a once-great sports legend grappling with fleeting fame. And there’s certainly no doubt the project wouldn’t have garnered all the attention it did without Mickey Rourke in the central role as aging wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson. Given Rourke’s own ups and downs during his career, many people have assumed he really didn’t have to act, per se, but just draw on his own personal experiences to sell the role. While some of that may be true, there’s a lot more going on in this poignant riches-to-rags portrait of a man trapped into doing the only thing he knows how; to wit, get into a wrestling ring and give the fans what they want. The movie is essentially a meditation on loss and regret — that deep and aching sense of “what if” that tends to creep into our minds late at night when we can’t sleep. Randy, as portrayed by Rourke, made a lot of wrong choices in his life that he can’t change, and he’s just trying to survive the best way he can. It’s not just about his choice of career, either; it’s also how he attempts to relate to those around him.

Like many professional wrestlers who had their heyday in the 1980s, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is now an aging former star with very little to show for his prior success. He lives in a trailer park, works odd hours at a local grocery store, and spends his weekends doing small wrestling gigs in local school auditoriums and rental halls. Despite all the literal amounts of blood, sweat and tears he pours into these matches, he gets paid maybe a couple of hundred bucks depending on the number of people who attend. But there’s still something about climbing into that ring that drives him — it’s an adrenaline rush like no other. It’s also the devoted fans that have followed his highs and lows that keep him going. During one particularly heinous match where Randy gets attacked in the ring by a gimmick wrestler who uses barbed wire and a staple gun on his opponents, he suffers a heart attack after getting stitched up in the locker room. Randy wakes up in the hospital to learn he’s had an emergency bypass operation and his doctor warns him that all the strenuous training and steroids — not to mention the rigorous wrestling matches themselves — are taking a toll on his body. If he continues wrestling, it very likely will kill him.

Standing at this crucial crossroads in his life, Randy first confides in one of the few friends he has outside his circle of wrestlers — an exotic dancer named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). Although Randy wants his relationship with Cassidy to lead to something more, she wants to keep things strictly “professional” between them. In many ways, however, they are kindred spirits — aging professionals who do what they can to make ends meet. Cassidy does eventually succumb to Randy’s charm, but when he tells her about his recent heart attack, she encourages him to contact his estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and make things right between them. Randy reluctantly goes to see Stephanie, but it’s clear she wants nothing to do with him. Bitter and resentful over the years when Randy never attempted to contact her, the young woman now thinks he’s just trying to get back into her good graces because of his failing health. Although the heart attack was, in fact, the catalyst that forced him to go see her, Randy has always regretted not being part of her life and he’s often spoken about her to Cassidy and his fellow wrestlers. The two do rekindle their relationship briefly, but soon the demands of Randy’s hectic wrestling schedule and a big planned reunion rematch with his former archrival “The Ayatollah” get in the way.

Randy doesn’t have much luck in courting Cassidy, either. They go on a couple of casual dates — drinks at a bar, shopping to get a present for Stephanie — but Cassidy remains just as guarded and introverted as Randy. Like him, she seems incapable of letting people she truly cares about into her inner circle. Both seem to share the same defense mechanism; that is, they shut out people if they get too close. As the old adage goes, most people work to live but people like Randy and Cassidy live to work. She can only truly be accessible when she’s performing onstage in a strip club. He is only in his element when he’s inside the ring, pounding another guy into the mat or taking some licks himself. Sadly, the only “normal” person in The Wrestler turns out to be Stephanie, but she ultimately has to move on without a father in her life. Randy’s real family is the cheering fans who egg him on and those fellow wrestlers he meets in the cramped dressing rooms before matches, trading war stories like Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw onboard the Orca in Jaws. To them, he will always be Randy “The Ram” Robinson, no matter how many years have passed or how old he gets. The joy on Randy’s face as he climbs into the ring for that powerful rematch at the film’s climax says it all: this is where he’s meant to be. His lived his whole life inside a wrestling ring and that’s where he’ll die, too.

Rourke gives a bravura performance in The Wrestler that is worthy of all the praise and accolades. It’s a perfect role for him in every conceivable way. His former stint as a boxer certainly helped him look the part, his aforementioned career peaks and valleys mirrored Randy’s own highs and lows, and his personal experiences with being considered a “has-been” in Hollywood certainly provided him with ample situations to draw on. But in reality, Rourke has always been great at playing these bigger-than-life roles where his character talks a good game and then subtly reveals there’s chinks in his armor. He played similarly tough but broken characters in films like Angel Heart and Year of the Dragon, so The Wrestler was another perfect fit. But both Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood also do some heavy lifting here and their underrated performances sometimes took a back seat to Rourke’s big “comeback.” Tomei continues to do stellar work in smaller roles like this and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead where she really makes the most of her limited time onscreen. Likewise, Wood is very compelling as Randy’s conflicted daughter — she and Rourke have some powerfully quiet scenes together that are among the best in the film. Last, but not least, director Darren Aronofsky has delivered another authentic portrait of a man struggling to stay relevant as life passes him by. Although this isn’t as flashy as his previous The Fountain, there are parallels here to his earlier Pi and Requiem for a Dream — both films focus on people struggling to fit in — and in the end he makes us care about them all the more.

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