In keeping with the tradition of last year, I'm going to suppress my distaste for end of year lists/awards and pick one film for the year to call the best. Last year there was a stellar selection of work from master filmmakers. This year it seems a bit more divided among various critics groups and other organizations so it makes for a fun discussion. For my two cents the best film this year was THE WRESTLER.
I’m not going to recap the plot since everyone reading this either already has seen the film or knows what it’s about generally. Besides the strength of this film (as with any great film) is not necessarily the plot, but the characters. This is where THE WRESTLER excels, as a character study. Mickey Rourke is tremendous as the titular character. His performance as Randy “The Ram”, plagued by nostalgia and recklessly hopeful, is a portrait of the American culture in glorious decline. It is timely subject matter indeed.
The object of Randy’s affection is a striper played by Marisa Tomei. By choosing to link these two characters together the film is touches on even deeper ideas. Selling your bodies, relying on the physicality of humanity to make a living is ancient and this message seems to echo some of the timeless themes in Arronofsky's last film THE FOUNTAIN. However in this case the filmmaker has pulled the narrative down to a supremely human scale and has found much more success there.
The film is artfully delicate and real step forward for Arronofsky. It seems to have been a strong choice for him to choose to adapt someone else’s work. In this case it is the work of writer Robert Siegel who will be making a splash at Sundance this coming January with his directorial debut, BIG FAN.
The strength of strong writing comes from strong characters and that is clearly the case with THE WRESTLER. His journey feels tragic, inescapable and inevitable and in the end finds a strange kind of glorious splendor. It’s a real unexpected treat to end the year on such a note.
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