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Top Critics (38)
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Predictable as it is, this sad, strong beast of a film keeps us pinned to the mat with the strength of its compassion and the overpowering force of its central performance.
The chance to play that poignant confusion is the real prize that Rourke and Tomei earn in The Wrestler.
The movie presses too hard and too often, but the performances are strong enough to withstand the melodramatic impulses, and the themes of isolation and self-destructiveness are too sharply realized to be trivialized.
The Wrestler has the intimacy of a fly-on-the-wall documentary. No stunt men were harmed -- or used -- in the fight sequences. But the drama makes for vibrant art.
With uncommon intelligence and brutal honesty, The Wrestler examines the cost, and need, of battle.
The Wrestler is strong, confident filmmaking. It shows you everything you need to know, and never whispers in your ear what you're supposed to feel about it.
Rourke makes you feel every ache, disappointment and battle scar, both inside and out.
Savour one of cinema's rawest talents finally powerslamming his way to glory and be grateful that Aronofsky dragged himself off the ropes on countless occasions to convince the money men to finance the movie with such a seemingly unbankable lead actor.
[Rourke's] performance here is so good and unshowy that you wind up almost happy to keep watching that mangled mug struggle for redemption.
There was no character to root for more strongly in spite of himself in 2008 than Randy the Ram, and "The Wrestler" spat and bled his physical poetry - an elegy of emasculation and exhaustion building, in its final shot, to all the exhilaration he needed.
Rourke doesn't need makeup to look this permanently damaged these days, and some of the emotional scars in his performance probably run painfully close to reality as well.
Gran actuación, gran película, 109 minutos sin desperdicio a dos de tres caídas. Recomendable sin duda alguna.
Whatever mistakes and indignities and turmoil led Mickey Rourke to where he is now, whatever demons have plagued him -- they all lead to the 1 hour and 55 minutes of magnificence that is his performance in' The Wrestler.'
Despite the low-tech feel, The Wrestler is very tight and disciplined. The score is spare but effective, nothing is wasted in dialogue or action, and the fight choreography and stunts are incredible. Rourke is phenomenal.
It's brutal yet sincere, funny yet solemn -- Darren Aronofsky has made a remarkable film that expertly depicts the reality of a sport it both honours and berates.
It's a testament to Mr. Rourke's talent that Randy's life and attempted redemption never devolve into maudlin, unearned sentimentality.
Any film that can make you feel the utter loneliness of a character like Mickey Rourke's is one that you can totally endorse. Yes, he's as good as they say.
I don't know if I've ever seen an actor more honest and vulnerable on screen.
Rourke wears his scars (both physical and emotional) with such naked humanity that his performance becomes a kind of on-screen outpouring of his own grief and waylaid potential
Extras on the disc include a featurette bringing together filmmakers and wrestlers to talk about the movie, and a Bruce Springsteen music video.
Topping off an outstanding production, director Darren Aronofsky's ending to The Wrestler is sheer perfection.
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