*** Spoilers below ***
Two people whose cultural opinions I respect and fear (thus my constant need to label them hipsters), love The Wrestler. Well, one of them has seen it and loves it, one of them loves it in advance. I've seen it and, well, I'm not in love. It was a fine film, but I can't get away from the fact that I found it pretty meaningless. I realize that it is supposed to be a little character study, not a blow-you-away type film, but for me it fails because the character it studies is implausible and completely unreal.
In the opening of the film, we are lead to believe that Randy "The Ram" Robinson was a top wrestling superstar from the early to mid 1980s. He's a Hulk Hogan, Randy "the Macho Man" Savage, Andre the Giant, Arn Anderson, or Rick Flair type. A face. A draw. No problem there.
The film, however, sets him up as a "down and out" type. He's living in a trailer in NJ, unable to pay his rent. He can't pay for his 'roids. He performs in front of twenty people. He's a grinder. He's got nothing else in his life, except wrestling, it's all he knows. What happened to the fame and fortune? Why is he, for instance, driving an old van, instead of, say, a 1985 Cadillac El Dorado? He must have made some bank back in the day. Did he blow it on coke and hookers? He doesn't seem to have a coke problem. He still drinks the odd brew now-and-again. What happened to it all? Why is there absolutely no indication that this guy once had it all, but lost it? Is it really possible for a man who had it all to end up a grinder? Maybe a guy who never quite had it could be a old grinder, but not someone who was the king.
The other thing is, he's a super nice guy. This is necessary to make the audience care about him, but it seems like everyone likes him. All his fellow wrestlers like him. The promoters still seem to like him. The fans like him and he treats them great. Why does this guy not have a real job in wrestling? Lord knows, Hogan and Flair stretched it out why past the point of plausibility. Why was he not given something behind the scenes? Maybe he pissed of Vince McMahon.
But he's totally alone in the world. Why? Both kids and strippers seem to enjoy his company. He can score skanks in a bar whenever he likes. In one glorious day he can get his daughter forgive him for years of neglect (he wasn't setting her up with some bread when he was big time?). Heck, he even shows some personality behind a deli counter. He's a great guy. Like I say, his fellow wrestlers seem to like and respect him. He can't grab a beer with them? Regale them with stories of the old days? Seems like that would happen. Nobody else from the old days is around to talk with? The movie gives absolutely reason this guy should be alone. He seems to crave human company, he's a great guy, but totally, implausibly, alone.
The dilemma that Randy the Ram faced seemed wildly implausible to me, so his solution to his problems seemed bizarre as well. If the message of the film was that society used these people for their bodies and entertainment (I'm counting Cassidy in here) and then casts them aside when it is done with them, what am I to make of the Ram's willful choice to throw aside all other options? Am I supposed to find some kind of beauty in his willful embrace of the notion that he is nothing more than a piece of meat? If so, then why the fuck was I lead through two hours of rooting for this guy to connect with somebody? Was I really supposed to be sitting there rooting for Randy to fail at making a connection with his daughter, fail at winning Cassidy, fail at crafting a life for himself outside of wrestling, all so he could wrestle one last time? That's bullshit because that's not what Randy the Ram, a guy I really like, wanted. The whole movie was about him making a last stab at making a human connection (even though they seemed to be all around him just waiting to be made), he made it, and he threw it all away for reasons I can't fathom.
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4 comments:
He was a nice guy and people liked him, but everytime he started getting more than a surface connection with another person, he foiled it. I don't think that's implausible as a character study. I do agree that the part that he used to be a famous wrestler and now he is so poor that he can't even afford to have a phoneline in his trailer is a little hard to swallow. However, maybe you just have to use your imagination...take a leap of faith...maybe he killed someone in a drinking and driving accident and that person's family sued him for everything and the WWF wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole after that. Ha, ha! There are possible explanations for his situation!
Your belief that a drunk driving manslaughter conviction keeps a man out of the WWE only means that you and I need to spend more time watching wrestling.
Ok, I saw The Wrestler, and I think all of your criticisms are bunk. First of all, he was at the top of his game in the 80's, and then broke by present day, and this is unbelievable to you? Have you ever seen Behind the Music. This is a story told time and time again. You hold up the one or two wrestlers who launched careers post-wrestling like that is the rule. My understanding is that Aranofsky actually did a lot of research around the subject, so my guess is that The Ram's story probably isn't at all unusual.
Secondly, he's a nice guy and everybody likes him. But everyone likes him on a superficial level. The only aspect in him that anyone values is that of a wrestler (from the kids in the trailer park, to the woman in the bar who wants to fuck him, to the other wrestlers). He doesn't have any relationships that don't revolve around wrestling, and at some point he tries to redefine himself (through his relationship with his daughter and Tomei) and fails, and at the end gives the speech that acknowledges that the ring is the only place he feels valued, and cannot or will not abandon that all encompassing characteristic of himself, even if that means death. We don't know if he was a nice guy, in a way that was an irrelevant point (he didn't have any relationships that could prove he was a nice guy).
Thirdly, it was a subtle statement on gender. The Ram and Pam both represented the idealized version of gender expectations past their prime. What does one do when that has been the defining characteristic of their existence, and society no longer values that (or you just can't meet those expectations anymore). These are real issues for many pro sports veterans, the redefining of self once that defining part is gone.
I await your reply.
Album,
You've convinced me. The Wrestler is a touching story about two people with no where left to go. Society has used and abused them and they are lost in a cold cruel world. If only they could find each other.
Oh wait, they did. Then one of them inexplicably killed himself. Really made me think.
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