Darren Aronofsky is one of my favorite directors, but so far his movies have been cult favorites, not reaching a wide audience. With this movie that will certainly change.
The main attraction of the movie is obviously Mickey Rourke. His performance is really the best of his career and one of the best of the year. He really makes you understand him and care for him. When he makes his decision at the end, it’s obviously a bad choice, but at the same time we get why he did it.
There are some scenes about the Wrestling world that are interesting to me, even though I don’t care about Wrestling at all. But there are many behind the scenes that shed some light on these people. There are also a few scene in the ring that are really violent and hard to watch. In fact my wife didn’t know anything about the movie, and during the first fight she almost wanted to scream at me for choosing this movie.
Luckily she didn’t and kept watching, and at the end she really loved it. His relationship with his daughter was the most important one. His decision at the end was made based on her daughter.
His relationship with Pam is also important, but she wasn’t enough to change his life. I didn’t think Marisa Tomei was great, but she certainly wasn’t bad. She definitely looks great.
I really thought this was a great movie, one of the best of the year. Too bad it wasn’t nominated.
Rating: 4 Stars