The Wrestler

Marissa Tomei as a stripper. Come on! It's a no-brainer! The trailer from today's matinee viewing extravaganza:



I'll be honest with you. I just don't care for Mickey Rourke. He looks like a cartoon of his former 9 1/2 Weeks self. Plump lips that seem to be utterly unable to form a whistle; overly stretched eyelids from one too many cosmetic procedures. He looks like a plastoid clown. So I had low expectations for both Rourke and the subject matter. (A professional wrestler? Really?)

I felt differently upon exiting the theater.

Sure Rourke looks like hell, but in the context of the film it works. Rourke portrays an old haggard hero from the wrestling world of the 1980s, The Ram. 20 years later, he's living in a trailer, sometimes sleeping in his van. He works in the backroom of a grocery store for money. He's behind on rent. He frequents a strip club and befriends an older stripper (Tomei). His daughter hates him for disappearing and not being around.

Can an old beaten down wrestler, an old stripper seeing young more nubile bodies squeezing her out, and a young daughter abandoned by her no-good father all manage to trudge through life? The parallel journeys of Rourke and Tomei, the wrestler and the stripper, are eerily similar. When all around you tells you to stop, yet this is the only life you know, how in the world CAN you stop?

A solid Matinee for the film,...but a "firm" (wink wink) Full Price for Marissa Tomei. Come on, she's a STRIPPER!!!!