Few themes in scripture or popular culture resonate more clearly than redemption. In what may be viewed as the Bible’s climax, a carpenter from Nazareth sacrifices himself so that others may be redeemed. Within the biblical narrative, this gift seems to favor the most broken, damaged and disaffected among us.
Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke) may be the least deserving yet most yearning seeker of redemption in recent film history. Flawlessly crafted within Darren Aronofsky’s edgy and haunting film, The Wrestler, Randy faces life twenty years removed from the height of his fame. He struggles mightily to amend his fate as a fading entertainer, an absent father, and an overall wreck of a human being.
Randy may or may not fall short in his quest for redemption, but the actor who plays him certainly atones. In one of those magical instances where life mirrors art, Rourke’s complex and nuanced performance testifies about the unrestricted availability of redemption. Rourke’s sublime feat bears witness that even the most broken among us are subject to unexpected flourishes of common grace.
Much has been made of the difficult time Aronofsky experienced convincing studio heads to let him cast Rourke as the lead. Favorably compared to Brando and Dean in his early career, Rourke squandered his promise through a series of vacant and misogynist roles. He followed his artistic demise with a ridiculous and disastrous stint as a pro boxer. In what must be seen as a vain attempt to restore his matinee-idol face from the beatings he received as a boxer, Rourke underwent a series of plastic surgeries that left him looking not entirely human.¹
It is through this strange intertextual mask that Randy the Ram views the world. While his disfigurement may still disqualify Rourke from future roles, it painfully enhances the fleeting vanity and celebrity so predominant in pro wrestling. To misquote Victor Hugo, he is beautifully grotesque.
But Rourke’s performance relies on more than a misshapen face. For an actor obviously prideful of his appearance, Rourke’s success in the role relies on a deep humility. With a documentary feel, the camera follows the Ram’s aching stride as he painfully lumbers into sad, half-empty auditoriums. Underscored by a soundscape of his barely audible groans from nagging pain, Randy’s cartoonishly muscular, yet perceptively sagging body resembles a played-out version of the 1980s action figure of himself that sits on his van’s dashboard. He is both pathetic and poignant.
Rourke’s ability to convey vulnerability characterizes the performance as a whole. In the moments when Randy does not shun human contact, he reveals himself through his gentle, suffering eyes. I will not soon forget the scene on the wintery Jersey shore in which Randy faces his estranged daughter. His teary eyes blur with sincerity and regret.
The Wrestler also examines the fate of other performers whose livelihood and sense of self rely on body image. After a night of throwing his aging, bloody frame around a ring, Randy unwinds at his neighborhood strip club. There he encounters a forty-something stripper named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). Tougher and grittier than Randy, Cassidy does not want customers to know that her real name is Pam, but her mask is failing too. She struggles to find takers for her private dances. The rude college kids refer to her as “mom.”
Late in the film, Cassidy experiences a moment of misery as wrenching as any of the blows Randy endures in the ring. Literally and figuratively she opens her eyes during a provocative striptease. Scanning the inattentive crowd, she discovers that no one is watching her. The recognition is heartbreaking and indicting.
Viewers who struggle with images of violence and sexuality should know that The Wrestler does not hesitate to show the dehumanizing objectification that it brutally critiques. Sensitive viewers may understandably recoil from the ingloriously bloody bouts in the ring or the callously impersonal nudity of the strip club. I needed to look away more than once.
But The Wrestler should not be dismissed because of its grittiness. It succeeds, in part, because it does not blink at the baseness of its subjects. From this baseness, an irrepressible sense of human decency survives and blooms. Prior to attending the film, many of us would probably have little desire to spend two hours steeped in the lives of an aging professional wrestler and his stripper would-be girlfriend. But through gentle storytelling and fine acting, we get to know, understand, and even love an otherwise poorly understood slice of our collective humanity. This is the fruit of great art.
As we find ourselves rooting and praying for the redemption of our new friends—Randy and Cassidy—we should also remember that we are all “the least of these” as God’s grace through salvation is made available to us all.
As we find ourselves rooting and praying for the redemption of Randy and Cassidy, we should remember that these dear “least of these” might also be beneficiaries of Christ’s enduring gift.
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¹Rene Rodriguez, “Raging Bull: The fight to cast Mickey Rourke in ‘The Wrestler’ defined the film,” miamiheard.com, http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/857338.html. <February 13, 2009>; A.O. Scott, “Hard Knocks, Both Given and Gotten,” nytimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/movies/17wres.html?8dpc. <February 13, 2009>
Robert Hubbard is Associate Professor of Theater and Speech at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa.
