The Wrestler

Last night I went to see the new Darren Aronofsky movie, The Wrestler. It is supposedly Mickey Rourke's comeback film. He plays a washed-up wrestler twenty years past his peak, long after alienating his wife and daughter, and long after really believing he could succeed. He has hardly any money and spends most of it getting ready for his weekend fights; these backyard wrestling matches are the only bright part of his life aside from a somewhat unbelievable connection with a stripper.

He spray tans, bleaches his long hair, and uses steroids to stay in fighting shape. I didn't think much about why I wanted to see the film and about half-way into it I wished I hadn't gone. Randy "The Ram" Robinson is a character out of my own life. His troubled relationship with his daughter very closely paralleled my relationship with my father. My father was tremendously charming when he wanted to be and the deli scene quickly reminded my of him. After finding out Randy shouldn't fight anymore he briefly attempts to straighten out and works briefly at a deli counter. He banters and is doing his best to make a job he isn't fit for enjoyable.

My father would every couple troubled years try to work and act happy. The only place he really was happy was playing with my sister and I, or probably getting high. In the film Randy easily gets along with the kids but he knows there isn't much depth to his relationships. He does his best to guide younger wrestlers and to cheer up the downtrodden Pam, who is played by Marisa Tomei.

I don't really know what the end of my father's life was like, but I can imagine that he was playing out that same pattern of trying to accept being less than what he was and then relapsing into drugs. He occasionally reached out to Emma or I but he always fucked things up. He'd leave my little sister at the mall or forget about her. The film itself is great, and the most impressive development is the humor. The film is dark and a bit depressing, but it has a levity that many of Aronofsky's other films lack. Randy knows he has failed and at times while he is pressed with his morality he laughs and tries to get by as best he can.

The last time I saw my father he had just bleached his hair and came to the pharmacy I worked in. I am sure he had done his best to look presentable. I turned the corner and there was my father, in his early fifties with bleached hair and doing his best to appear young. Despite all the years of heroin use he looked younger than his age. We had a brief conversation and I couldn't help but say I love you in reply to him. A couple minutes later I realized that again he was managing to sneak his way back into my life and I lashed out at him. I told him not to come back again.

This fucking movie brought back those moments of feeling betrayed and hurt very vividly. Just as in my life, I watched as Randy fucked up and wished that he could change. I always had this fantasy that one day my father would clean up and we could talk about our days spent playing frisbee or walking through the woods together. That never happened.