Today after church two friends of mine and I ventured to the Orchard Park Regal to view a movie that I have been waiting to see for that past few months. The movie as titled above is called “The Wrestler.” If you have read my page that I posted earlier I stated that I mostly like to talk about movies and what they mean to me. If you disagree with my stance on Christians watch R rated movies please contact me and maybe we can talk, but either way The Wrestler is rated R and I deeply believe that it is not for the average Christian to see. Especially if you are a minor. You would not get the adult under tones and much just find the movie plain boring. Either way on to the Review.
The movie is about Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson [Mickey Rourke] and it begins with the title screen of snippets of Randy’s career during the 80’s where he was at the peak of his wrestling career, much like Hulk Hogan. However, once the open credits end you see a man sitting alone in a metal chair in the corner of a kindergarden room. Randy just finished a fight and is slowly taking off the tape that is all over his arm. It is obvious is hey day is far behind him. The scene progresses to him being locked out of his trailer home and being forced to sleep in his 1980’s Dodge Ram. The man is a shadow of who he once was. When he is not wrestling on the weekends he works as a grocery store to make ends meet and pay for his trailer home. When he’s not working he’s at the gym shooting up of the roids and, sorry to say it this way, pumping iron. In his trailer community it seems that people like him for being a quiet man who keeps to him self. At work his boss harasses him about his glory days, but at the small wrestling matches that are held at American Legions or Schools he is still considered a hero. His wrestler buddies always clap when he enters a room and his fans still ask for autographs. The Ram continues to live in the past. As the movie continues you see Randy taking slightly more riskier wrestling matches where he forces him self to cut his own forehead to entertain the crowd and even gets into what looks like a death match where anything goes like staple guns, and yes they show them taking the staples out in the movie. While the wrestling attitudes are fake because when the current is closed each wrestler shakes their hand and pats each other on the back, the fighting is now, which leads to Randy’s heart attack and forces him to rethink his life.
Originally when I saw the trailer to the movie it looked kind of boring, but I kept hearing how Mickey Rourke was brilliant in it so it convinced me to want to go. Yes, Mickey Rourke is brilliant in The Wrestler and most likely will get the Oscar for best Actor, but what happened with the character in the movie really made me think about people’s lives and how they feel they could never be forgiven or truly loved by others. Randy lives in 2008, but his heart and his mind remain in 1988. He leans on his fans to feel like he belongs to feel excepted. The man is blind as to how his wrestling keeps him from being not only a stable person, but reaching his true potential as a human being. It made me think of myself on how I can become stuck in the past and think about the supposed “glory days” of my faith back in high school. The idea of being a new Christian during this time can seem easy and …. I don’t know at times I think that was when I was really following God. However, it’s these ideas and thoughts of grandur that keep me from seeing reality. How many Christians suffer from what I believe is the same disease, nestalgia. It is at this point we stop trusting God and leaning on what we believe we created. How wrong … I continue to be when nestalgia rears it’s head.
***Spoiler Alert**** if you don’t want to know what happens in the movie continue past the alert otherwise continue.
Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson had a chance to redeem himself after his heart attack. Like most people who experience a tramadic experience they begin to ask why and how can I change. He realized that he has screwed up as a father and is killing himself. He goes about trying to redeem himself with his now twenty something daughter, Stephanie [Evan Rachel Wood]. He reaches out to his stripper friend, Pam, [Marisa Tomei] to find some kind of normality in life as she is trying to do the same. However after once bad move on his part, which was really not being able to back down from asking Pam out, it creates a spiral of problems for him, which causes his daughter to scream, “I never want to see you again.” Where does Randy go now? Back to his supposed love wrestling, which he knows will kill him if he continues. His misconception for love that he believes his fans give him reminds me of an addict who goes back to their problem because they aren’t getting their fix the way they wanted, mostly because its too hard. Just like a Christian who gives up on God because he stops relying on Him.
***Spoiler END****
The Wrestler is a tragic movie, which may not be for every one, but it is easy to see the conections between misguided love and missguided faith in a God who love you now. Marisa Tomei’s character while not perfect in any way can be seen as a god figure by the end of the movie where she says that she truly does care for him and that the love of poeple is really just an illusion. We as christians can become obsessed with ideas of how it used to be in our faith or even begin to believe that other things like people can fulfill us like God can, but we fail to realize that God loves us now. He can help us now! He will never stop caring now or ever. Like Randy where is our faith in the one who truly loves us when everything goes wrong?
The Wrestler is in my opinion a fantastic character piece that deserves every Oscar it gets. Thank you for reading this post and hopefully it does…something…yea.
The Wrestler is rated R for strong violence, Nudit, strong language, and sexual situations and is in no way recomended for those who don’t know how to ignore these things see the humanity in the movie.
Tomi Out
