I recently got angry at myself for suddenly realizing I haven't seen: The Wrestler, Doubt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionare, and Gran Torino. And there's others I'm probably missing.
So tonight, I went to see The Wrestler.
I already heard good things, so I can't say "I was surprised at how good it is." And I'm still kinda taking it all in, thinking about it. It's one of those movies where the actors, locations, dialogue, etc., are so damn gritty and well-done that looking back, it doesn't feel like I watched a movie in a theater; but rather that I was a fly on a wall, experiencing the life of this man.
Micky Rourke plays Randy "The Ram" Ramzinski, an ex 80s pro-wrestler who now lives in a really poor area of Jersey, in his trailer he can barely afford. (He works at Acme during the week. Jersey Pride whaaat!) His daughter hates him, and the closest thing to a friend he has is a stripper, played by Marisa Tomei. (This isn't a Hollywood typical strip club she works at it. It's almost uncomfortably real sometimes, and Tomei is topless 80% of the movie. It's great.) Her character is a great parallel to Rourke's: they are both aging performers in an already lowest-common-denominator, sleaze, escapist industry who are coming to realize that they have no place in the real world, yet are slowly becoming irrelevant to the only place they are themselves.
Rourke is meant to play this part. I'll admit I haven't seen him in much (I'm no movie expert here). But I can't imagine anyone else playing this part, and Rourke does it brilliantly. Tomei is great, too. (How old is she?! Did I say already how surprisingly hot she is for her age?)
Anyway, here's the trailer, if you haven't see it yet.
It's like the thinking man's Rocky.
That's the best I can do, writing a review. I'm not good at metaphors and stuff. It's really good, you guys. I can't give it "stars", because if I like something, it gets 5 stars, and don't like it, it gets 0 stars.
So... 5 STARS!
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