Aging Bull

After 1998's aggressively independent head-trip "Pi" and 2000's bravura drug epic "Requiem for a Dream", director Darren Aronofsky established himself as a visionary filmmaker with a talent for bringing a visceral immediacy to his craft. Six years, and nearly as many leading men, later he returned with 2006's unfairly maligned but fairly overlooked elegy "The Fountain". Now, perhaps seeking a return to his independent roots, Mr. Aronofsky takes a step back to his indie roots with "The Wrestler", a small character study about an over-the-hill pugilist coming to terms with the inevitable passage of time. And who better to accompany Mr. Aronofsky back to basics than Mickey Rourke, the one-time sex symbol (remember "Nine 1/2 Weeks"? "Angel Heart"?) who, after years of hard-living and questionable decision-making, has found something of a resurgence playing hardened thugs with soft hearts ("Domino", "Sin City"). Mr. Rourke is the film's bruised, battered heart and soul.

After a credit sequence that establishes Randy 'The Ram' Robinson as a reigning force in the world of pro wrestling, a subtitle playful states "20 Years Later". We pick up The Ram backstage at a match, taping various bones and aching muscles. A monstrous, puffy hulk of a man with a head of long, scraggly blond hair, Mr. Rourke is the picture of Hulk Hogan as he might have been, had he not chosen to become a reality TV parody of himself. At first, shot mostly from the back, The Ram has the distinct sound of another well-known movie fighter. Like Rocky Balboa, The Ram is a man of few syllables. But what he does say is typically either a snappy one-liner or a heartfelt confession. He's like the older Jake La Motta without the rage.

Between bouts, The Ram frequents a local strip club where he has forged a tenuous relationship with an equally past-her-prime dancer named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei, fearlessly displaying a well-used gym membership). The Ram is a colossal mass of bulges and bumps, but inside he's an old softy and, when some younger customers get fresh with Cassidy, The Ram's not above stepping in.

Mr. Aronofsky has a lot of fun showing the behind-the-scenes world of wrestling as these performers (which is perhaps a more appropriate term than athletes) carefully coordinate their choreography to please the screaming fans. But make no mistake, the matches may be planned but there's still plenty of full-contact going on. In the film's most harrowing sequence, after a particularly brutal bout, The Ram is felled by a heart attack. Lost and on the mend, he makes an attempt at human contact by reaching out to Cassidy and his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood, reliably in tears half the time) with appropriately mixed results.

Proud men felled by the ravages of age have always been fodder for moving character studies on film. The script, by Robert D. Siegel, doesn't cover much new ground here, but in the hands of Mr. Aronofsky, the film is nearly unbearably real at times. As he's done in the past, the director is able to get down to the bone and scrape the nerves. Much of the credit goes to Mr. Rourke's raw, naked performance as the title. As Oscar-worthy as his performance is, it's almost unfair: Mr. Rourke doesn't act the character, he simple is The Ram. When he says - in the film's only tear-jerking "I coulda been a contender" moment - that he's "a broken-down piece of meat", it's hard not feel that the actor has spent a lifetime wrestling with demons of his own.