The Wrestler (2008 film)

The Wrestler is a 2008 American sports drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Robert Siegel. The film stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, and Evan Rachel Wood. Rourke plays an aging professional wrestler who, despite his failing health and waning fame, continues to wrestle due to financial hardship and in an attempt to cling to the success of his 1980s heyday. He also tries to mend his relationship with his estranged daughter and to find romance with a woman who works as a stripper.

The film received critical acclaim and won the Golden Lion Award at the 65th Venice International Film Festival, where it premiered. The success of the film revitalized Rourke's career and he went on to win a Golden Globe, a British Academy Film Award, an Independent Spirit Award as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Tomei also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Plot

Professional wrestler Robin Ramzinski, better known by his ring name Randy "The Ram" Robinson, rose to prominence in the 1980s. Now past his prime, he wrestles on weekends for independent promotions in New Jersey, resides in a trailer park, and works part-time at a supermarket, with his manager Wayne demeaningly disparaging his background. A regular patron at a strip club named Cheeques, he befriends a stripper named Pam, better known by her stage name Cassidy. After winning a local match, he agrees to a proposed 20th-anniversary rematch with his most notable opponent, "The Ayatollah", viewing it as a potential return to stardom.

Randy intensifies his training, which includes anabolic steroid injections. After wrestling in a hardcore match, he suffers a heart attack backstage and undergoes coronary artery bypass surgery. Upon awakening, he is instructed by his doctor to refrain from further taking steroids and continuing his career, as his heart can no longer handle the exertion. Reluctantly, he decides to retire and begins working a full-time shift at the supermarket's deli counter.

Cassidy recommends that Randy attempt to rebuild his relationship with his estranged young-adult daughter Stephanie, whom he had abandoned when she was a child; he visits her residence, but she rebuffs him because he was unavailable to properly raise her. While accompanying him in purchasing a gift for Stephanie, Cassidy discloses that she has a 9-year-old son named Jameson, but she rejects his attempts to romance her because her occupation forbids romantic affairs with customers. Later, he re-encounters Stephanie, gives her the present he purchased and apologizes for forsaking her and her mother years earlier to focus on his own career. The two reconnect over a visit to a beachfront boardwalk, where he often took her when she was young, and agree to meet for dinner at a restaurant on the coming Saturday.

A few days later, Randy encounters Cassidy at Cheeques and compliments her for reconnecting him with Stephanie, but she declines his offer to purchase her a drink, resulting in a heated confrontation between the two. Upset, he attends a wrestling match and commiserates with his fellow wrestlers. While conversing with them at a nearby bar, he becomes massively inebriated, consumes heavy amounts of cocaine, partakes in sexual intercourse with a female follower in the women's restroom, and awakens in her bedroom the following morning. Exhausted, he sleeps the entire day away, awakening that night to discover that he has overlooked his appointment with Stephanie. He ventures to her residence in the middle of the night and apologizes to her for neglecting their date, but having tearfully reached her breaking point with him, she instead disowns him permanently and coldly ejects him from the house.

The next day, at the deli counter, a patron identifies Randy, though he persistently denies it. Agitated, he damages his own hand on the slicer and immediately quits his job on the spot, insulting Wayne and the nearby customers before departing. Spurred by the fan's recognition of him, he wholly recommits to wrestling and reschedules the rematch. He re-encounters Cassidy, who has also recently quit her job, and reconciles with her. She implores him to cancel the event and retire from wrestling permanently so as to give the outside world a second chance, but he respectfully declines, explaining that he belongs in the ring with his fellow wrestlers, surrounded by legions of numerous devoted fans who, unlike the rest of society, have always loved and respected him throughout his life.

During the match, the Ayatollah notices an increasingly-unsteady Randy developing excruciating chest pains, urging him to initiate the pin and conclude the match to salvage the remnants of his declining health. Randy purposely declines, however, and proceeds to steal one of the Ayatollah's signature moves before mounting the top rope. Surveying the crowd, he realizes that Cassidy has disappeared both from the arena and from his life. With his heart approaching myocardial rupture, tears streaming from his eyes, and a smile on his sweat-drenched face from hearing the warm and familial sound of his fans' rapturous cheers and chants of his name, he executes his signature finishing move, a diving headbutt termed the "Ram Jam", by leaping from the top rope.

Cast

• Mickey Rourke as Robin Ramzinski / Randy "The Ram" Robinson
• Marisa Tomei as Pam / Cassidy
• Evan Rachel Wood as Stephanie Ramzinski
• Mark Margolis as Lenny
• Todd Barry as Wayne
• Judah Friedlander as Scott Brumberg
• Ernest Miller as Bob / 'The Ayatollah'
• Ajay Naidu as Medic
• Wass Stevens as Nick Volpe
• John D'Leo as Adam

Professional wrestlers who appeared in the film include: Robbie E, Necro Butcher, Nick Berk, The Blue Meanie, Sabian, Nate Hatred, Ron Killings, L.A. Smooth, Jay Lethal, Johnny Valiant, Jim Powers, Austin Aries, Claudio Castagnoli, Larry Sweeney, Paul E. Normous, Romeo Roselli, John Zandig, Chuck Taylor, Nigel McGuinness, D. J. Hyde, Kit Cope, Drew Gulak, Bobby Dempsey, Judas Young, Pappadon, and Jay Santana.

Production

Development

The Wrestler was written by Robert D. Siegel, a former writer for The Onion, and entered development at director Darren Aronofsky's company Protozoa Pictures. Nicolas Cage entered talks to star in October 2007. He left the project a month later, with Mickey Rourke replacing him. According to Aronofsky, Cage pulled out of the movie because Aronofsky wanted Rourke as the lead character. He said in a 2008 interview with /Film, "[Cage] was a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but [...] Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and he is old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity, so he pulled himself out of the race." However, Cage denied Aronofsky's account in a 2009 interview with Access Hollywood and explained, "I wasn't 'dropped' from the movie. I resigned from the movie because I didn't think I had enough time to achieve the look of the wrestler who was on steroids, which I would never do."

Rourke was initially reluctant when first approached for the lead role, later stating, "I didn't really care for the script, but I wanted to work with Darren and I kind of thought that whoever wrote the script hadn't spent as much time as I had around these kind of people and he wouldn't have spoken the way the dude was speaking. And so Darren let me rewrite all my parts and he put the periods in and crossed the T's. So once we made that change, I was okay with it."

Wrestler Hulk Hogan claimed in 2012 on The Howard Stern Show that he was also offered the lead role, and that he turned down the role because he felt he was not the right man to portray the character. Aronofsky disputed these claims and tweeted that "the role of the Wrestler was always [Rourke's]; it was never Hulk Hogan's as he claims on [The Howard Stern Show]".

Filming

The film's shoot began in January 2008 and lasted approximately 40 days, with filming taking place on 16mm film using some areas of New York City but primarily New Jersey locations such as Asbury Park, Bayonne (in a supermarket where Rourke served and improvised with real customers), Dover, Elizabeth, Garfield, Hasbrouck Heights, Linden, Rahway, and Roselle Park. Scenes were also shot at The Arena in Philadelphia.

Afa Anoa'i, a former professional wrestler, was hired to train Rourke for his role. He brought his two main trainers, Jon Trosky and Tom Farra, to work with Rourke for eight weeks. Both trainers also have parts in the film.

One scene features a fictional Nintendo Entertainment System video game called Wrestle Jam '88, featuring the characters of Robinson and The Ayatollah. Aronofsky requested a fully functioning game for the actors to play. Programmer Randall Furino and the film's title designer Kristyn Hume created a playable demo with a working interface and AI routines that also featured 1980s era-appropriate graphics and music.

To add more realism, the locker room scenes were improvised. Some of the supermarket deli scenes were also improvised.

Marisa Tomei was made to do 36 takes to get her pole dancing right.