Ageing wrestler Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson is down on his luck. Long since out of the limelight, and with his brutal profession taking an increasing toll on his body, he attempts to adjust to a normal job, and to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood).
At the same time, he begins to pursue a burgeoning romance with Cassidy (Maria Tomei), a single mother whose work as an erotic dancer mirrors the way Randy’s uses his own body for the entertainment of others. But the lure of the ring, and the cycle of self-destruction that has marked Randy’s life, is never far away.
The Wrestler won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, before going on to earn Oscar nominations for Marisa Tomei and Mickey Rourke, who nearly completed what would have been the greatest of all Oscar comebacks had he taken home Best Actor in 2009. Combining ferocious, sometimes barbaric scenes in the ring with a raw and deeply vulnerable emotional performance outside it, The Wrestler drew on Rourke’s own experiences away from the limelight. Captured in grainy, handheld 16mm by Aronofsky, who was making his own comeback of sorts after the critical and commercial failure of 2006’s The Fountain, this is one of the great films about a performer driven to the edge.