Randy is an old time has been wrestler who has grown old but still finds pleasure in the sport. He has now found himself at the bottom of the tree, the people of whom he wrestles with are amateurs and usually fights in shows held in a dirty run down town hall. He is skint and finds it hard to pay rent as well as spending time with his daughter and finding love. Although wrestling is a hobby of his you can also suggest that Randy is wrestling against life. Wrestling is his life and he finds it impossible to push it aside.
Throughout the film we see how Randy doesn’t fit into the normal person’s life. His look and size is completely different to everyone else, he is extremely lackadaisical when it comes to work and has no structure in his life. He does things when he wants to and doesn’t think of the consequences, when he forgets to take his daughter out for example. He never seems to understand his own daughter. He either tries too much or too little to try and impress her. This downfall is shown later on when he makes an old lady a potato salad, he cant get it right without the old woman commenting ‘a little more’ or ‘a little less’.
We see examples of how important wrestling is to Randy from start to finish. We are allowed behind the scenes. Although big in size and rather scary looking, the wrestlers come across as nice people. They are close to each other and are Randy’s family. The organiser of the first wrestling fight is a small feller. He demands the role of each wrestler which they accept with gratitude, this just gives them a vibe of kindness and compassion which results in us warming towards them. Before his heart attack no-one refers to Randy as Randy, but they refer to him as ‘Ram’. He is always living in his act even when he isn’t wrestling; it is only until he decides to give wrestling up that people start calling him Randy instead of the Ram. He seems to be well known and loved by everyone. Randy’s love of wrestling results in him going back for a final fight even though he has had a heart attack and his body giving up on him. His costume consists of a hearing aid and glasses and he coughs repeatedly throughout. All signs of ageing.
Many may know that as well as ‘The Wrestler’, Aronofsky’s other productions include some critically acclaimed films such as ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Pi’. Some people say that ‘The Wrestler’ and ‘Black Swan’ are the same movie. This supports the idea of the auteur theory. A film director makes the same movie over and over again due to the significant conventions used. In some cases, musicians make the same music over and over again. They use the same guitar sound, the same chord progression, the same rhythm, the same song topic in every one of their songs. The reasons why people say these two films are the same is due to the auteur theory. Both protagonists in both films are performers and inflict pain on themselves to be the best as well as having an abnormal relationship with family, both protagonists are limited sexually, both films contain very graphic scenes of pain, both are set in a crappy area and both result in a death at the end. There are many more comparisons to name them results in extensive reading.
The theme of ‘pain is pleasure’ is included throughout. Randy only gets pleasure from inflicting pain on himself, we see this in the form of cutting himself with razor blades etc.
The setting of the film can be described as dystopia; we see similar settings in films such as ‘Gran Torino’ and ‘Black Swan’ which convey the world to be a dark and dirty place. Other than this we do see some great set designs from the location of the first wrestling match, a damp old community hall with chandeliers which gives it an old fashioned theatre look to the surrounding woods of Randy’s home. An apocalyptic forest full of dead trees is a great way to visual Randy’s death from the world of wrestling.
Aronofsky presents us with some epic scenes. When Randy takes a new shift at his job which involves talking to customers it shows the parallel of the two life’s in which Randy leads. The scene is a non edited continuous shot which is set out as though Randy is going out for a wrestling match, this is made more obvious due to the inclusion of the non- diagetic sound recording of a cheering crowd played over the top. Another great scene comes when Randy is cutting cheese for a customer and a great amount of tension comes when we await his fingers to be sliced off. However he stops so all tension and suspense is gone, but Randy decides to punch the blade resulting in claret being splattered everywhere. This break in genre convention leaves us surprised and shocked, also suggesting Randy to be a bit odd.
The role of Cassidy is extremely important in the film. She is someone Randy can relate to, in fact, she is the only person he can relate to. The only proper conversation Randy has in the whole film is with her as she performs a lap dance. It is suggested that Randy likes Cassidy not for her body but her conversation. The two are very similar and can be suggested to be the same person. They are both performers trying to get out of their jobs and they don’t seem to be able to mix in with the real world. Both jobs are similar in the sense that they perform naked, wearing a similar costume to one another. Pants and boots. Cassidy is almost a mirror image of Randy however in the end Cassidy manages to get out of her job, Randy doesn’t and ends up dead.
Some might go as far to say that Cassidy is masculine and Randy is feminine which results in her achievement and his failing. This can be supported by the fact that Cassidy wears no make up outside of work, she is a beer drinker and has a muscular physique with extremely small breasts, and even Randy’s breasts are bigger than hers.
Randy comes across as being someone who loves themselves. Not only this but some criticisms suggest that the film comes across gay. Randy has long blonde hair, takes steroids to become bigger in size to please people that come and see him wrestle, and all seem to be male. One great example of this is when his buying steroids of a big muscle filled bloke in the changing rooms. We as the audience become intrigued by how big this feller is and take pleasure in him tensing his muscles.
The gay connotations come during the wrestling matches. Big blokes rolling on the floor with one another, their body’s sweating as they shout in pain. Some wrestlers are even seen wearing bondage outfits like leather pants, leather masks which isn’t too far off mirroring a naughty porn film. The wrestlers seem to gain pleasure by being tortured by other men. GAY! A weird conception seeing as more males seem to enjoy this film than a female does.
Randy’s hobbies include getting his hair dyed and getting fake tanned, all things that a woman would do and Aronofsky insists of showing shots of Randy’s bum cheeks throughout the film, maybe some people might like this. A clip which supports this idea of Randy having a major crush on himself is when he meets a blonde girl in a bar. She has long blonde hair similar to Randy. The next scene we are produced with a sex scene of Randy giving the girl (himself) anal sex in front of a mirror. As Randy is performing this act he looks at one thing. Himself. The only reason people go to the gym, have fake tan etc is to get more gratification out of looking at their own image, therefore this film explores the belief that everyone has a major love for their own image and they change it for their own benefit. The next morning Randy wakes up to pull a cover from a cage to reveal a rat.
You can’t help watching the film without realising some religious aspects.
One way in which can link the bible in with ‘The Wrestler’ is the fight in which results in Randy’s heart attack. The fighter he is up against very much looks likes a Jew, the religion of Jesus Christ. He has a bald head with long black curly sideburns and beard. It is the use of the props which suggests the match is the act of crucifying the Jewish looking man (Jesus Christ). The first prop used is a nail gun, nails of which were used to hang Christ up on the cross. Then we see barbed wire involved symbolising that of the thorns Christ wore on his head. The bloodied body of Randy’s opponent is a mirror image of that of Christ.
It can be however, be suggested that Randy takes on the role of Christ. We are shown a visual image of Christ throughout the film as Randy has him tattooed on his back. However, his long hair and white costumes that keep appearing it is no wonder why Randy dies and is reborn after his heart attack. Cassdiy can be suggested to play the role of Mary Madeline or the Virgin Mary. She is a stripper, which blasphemies suggest Mary was, however, we never see her have sex even though she has her own children.
Randy’s last fight begins with a speech, like Jesus, everyone has come to see him in which Randy shares with them his meaning of life. The last final scene is an image of Randy with his arms spread out ready to jump. The shape of his body resembles a cross. This can be suggested to symbolise Jesus’ death and therefore Randy’s. The Jewish looking fighter may have just been used as a foreshadowing element.
The film is very graphic in some scenes of violence however one of the best self annihilation films out to date.
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