I pulled a chest muscle recently.  Well, it started with the one, the consequence of swimming, and then — as the doctor explained, muscles are like the British workforce: one goes, and the others come out in sympathy.  It hurt a lot — even breathing was painful, and using my right arm was pretty much out of the question.  Anyway, if that’s the sort of anecdote you relish, I can heartily recommend seeing The Wrestler.  If you’re a bit more squeamish about torn tissue, strained ligaments and the like, you’re better off steering clear.

What all that suffering is about…well, that’s something I’m still pondering.  There is a school of thought that says serious stories are essentially the depressing ones, since they describe what life is like more accurately than comedies, romances, etc.  This of course begs the question of ‘accurate according to who?’.  And the answer to that turns out to be academics and critics, who as a breed are a joyless bunch for the most part.  Imagine trying to put a smile on Brian Sewell’s face and you’ll get the idea.

Anyway, some people fall for the idea of seriousness meaning depressing, and Darren Aronofsky is one of them.  And he does it well, as anyone who’s seen Requiem for a Dream can testify.  Whether it needs to be done is another question, one that doesn’t seem to have entered the director’s head.

Essentially, The Wrestler is a high quality B movie, a touching tale of a hasbeen fighter on the gimmicky wrestling circuit still at it twenty years after his heyday.  In large part, it’s the casting of Mickey Rourke that makes it work: he’d have to be extraordinarily dense not to empathise with the story given his troubled history, and he’s far from that.  He doesn’t just look the part of Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, he inhabits it, a pumped-up and buffed monstrosity whose immense head seems part doberman.

Scripted by Robert D. Siegel, the film capably gets across what it’s like to live in Randy’s world.  He’s a desperate creation, whether he’s rocking out to 80s hair metal bands, trying to forge a relationship with a stripper, or quitting the world of wrestling to work on a deli counter.  But Randy — don’t call him Robin — was born for the ring, and returns there once again for a rematch with his old nemesis, The Ayatollah.

If you thought there was something tragic about actors from cult tv shows peddling their autographs at conventions, wait till you see what the equivalent wrestling nostalgists are like.  Still celebrating their heroes two decades on from their prime, it’s the fans who are as much to blame for what Randy goes through — which includes having industrial staples whapped into his flesh by an opponent looking for a new crowdpleaser — as the fighters themselves.  Well, you could perhaps take a bigger view and have a look at the economics of the system as it affects the also-rans, taking America’s lamentable healthcare into account too, but the film’s focus is firmly on what happens in the ring.

It’s very well done, but I have to ask what the point is.  I’ve seen documentaries on the world of wrestling that are more insightful than this, and good as Rourke’s performance is it’s part of a film that takes a view of its characters at the outset of the story and doesn’t much change from that point.  To sum it up in four words, actually two: hurt people hurt people.  If that’s a worldview you want to see presented on screen, you’ll relate to this film.  Otherwise, get out and have a drink with a friend, go for a walk, whatever.  Just don’t pull a muscle while you’re doing it.