On The Last Image in The Wrestler (Spoiler Alert)

In the heaviest double feature since World Wars I and II, I saw both The Wrestler and The Reader on Sunday. (Call it my crazy need to see Oscar hopefuls.) Both films have stuck with me for various reasons, but it's The Wrestler that I really can't shake.

The very last image has especially taken root, so I'm gonna analyze it. (NOTE: This post assumes you've seen the movie, or don't mind learning how it ends.)

First, let me explain how I read the larger context of the film.

I agree with Mick LaSalle of The San Francisco Chronicle. , primarily when he notes that the movie neither romanticizes nor pities poor people... that it doesn't present them as grubby saints or desperate freaks. Instead, it demonstrates that you can be poor and still have a variety of experiences. That, you know, you can still be human.

And that might seem obvious, but think about how many movies simplify poverty into a symbol: Titanic practically bleeds to prove that the folks in steerage are more virtuous than nasty Billy Zane in his sparkly cufflinks, while Deliverance is a metaphor for the danger of straying below the middle class. Either way, the poor don't get to be people.

But in The Wrestler, director Darren Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert D. Siegel refuse to reduce anyone. Randy "The Ram" (Mickey Rourke) gets locked out of his trailer, but he also has some genuine fun at his deli counter job and the kids in his trailer park love him. Pam (the stripper played by Marisa Tomei) hates her dead-end career, but she also knows how to find good clothes in a thrift store and is shown being a considerate mother.

This approach to poverty indicates the film's overall complexity: Time and again, it finds contradictions in supposedly cut-and-dry situations.

The final image crystallizes that outlook. We know going in that Randy could be killing himself by wrestling his comeback match against the Ayatollah, and we know he's fleeing to the mat because he can't face his failure as a father or his fear of being with Pam. We also hear his stuttering, post-bypass heartbeat as he moves around the ring. Clearly, he's on the edge of death.

But here's the thing: We don't see Randy die. I thought we would, Million Dollar Baby-style. I thought we'd seem him die and then get to feel oceans of pity for the broke, broken-down bastard who wasted his life trying to recapture old glory.

Instead, the last image asks us to notice what else is going on during the wrestling match. Along with the Ram's scary heartbeat, for instance, we hear the roar of a worshiping crowd and the Ayatollah's gentle support. We realize Randy isn't just escaping reality when he wrestles: He's also finding legitimate acceptance on terms he understands.

But does that mean we should just be happy for him? No. His mistakes are no less severe because he feels loved in the wrestling ring. But conversely, his joy is no less real because he has problems. Both parts of his life are equally true. Poverty and dignity, happiness and sadness, liberation and fear -- all these things can exist together.

Which brings me (at last) to the final image: As though we're laying on our backs, we see the Ram leaping over us, performing his famous "Ram Slam." In silence, he sails across the screen, arms outstretched, and then the credits roll.

The image implies several things at once: On one hand, Randy could be leaping to his death... pushing his body to its final breaking point. On the other, he's flying. He's in the air, liberated by a wrestling move.

How absolutely accurate: Any moment in our life could be wonderful or terrible. It just depends on how we see it while it's flying overhead.

Comments

[SColbert]

I saw the wrestler the first time a week ago and walked out of theater thinking that Pam was there supporting Randy and that he was going to be okay. So, I took my friend to see it today and I saw a totally different ending. For some reason, I totally missed it the first time but half way through the fight Pam leaves. How did I miss that? So, at the end we see Randy looking up there to see her and he shakes his head because he knows she left. I missed the part the first time where we see Pam walking away. I thought that Randy was just shaking his head, but what a different ending I must say. Now, the second time since I saw Pam walking out I must say that I believe he did die after that last jump. We are shown that the last person in his life has just walked away, his daughter had earlier. So, Ram has nothing left. What do you think?

[pons1595]

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

The Wrestler is a brutal, lyrical cinematic-poem. The Wrestler is about anyone who’s spent his life devoted to a single pursuit with nothing else in his or her life. The Wrestler has long since self-destructed, demolishing everyone and everything else around him. His life is emptiness, futility and misery; it is also a reflection on the problems involved in human communication, and on the meaning (or lack of it) to life. He wants love, but cannot accept it. Addicted to being defined by what he does and that alone, and defined by himself as a broken piece of meat who has lived so hard that he’s now left drained dry, the wrestler is a mirror reflection of modern man's loneliness and hollow excess; just as the style of the movie is like the mean streak curling poisonously inside of so much American popular entertainment and of so much of American life. The Wrestler is one of the most grimly exciting, magnetically repellent movies we've had in a long time; it's flat-out one of the best American movies of 2008.

[bongstradamus]

I've done my best to see all the Oscar contenders (still have to get to The Reader) and so far, The Wrestler has been my favorite. Some of my film nerd buddies said it was better than Raging Bull, which made me pretty skeptical. I'll have to agree, this movie was so well done all the way around, the characters were genuine, the pacing perfect, and their circumstances surprisingly real and not overinflated. I think The Wrestler is the only movie this past year that really qualifies as a Best Picture. It surprised me in many ways and I still continue to think about it even weeks after seeing it.

This movie is epic even though it was low budget. The ending was perfect. Pure cinematic poetry. I've been telling all my friends that if they are going to spend any money on a movie to go see this one. Aronofsky is a genius.

[brueso]

I viewed this ending as a kind of Rorschach Test like the ending of the Sopranos- you decide. It's ambiguous enough that you can conclude different endings.

[LLNYRN]

I, for one didn't mind the ambiguous (or the new term "blackout") ending for "THE WRESTLER". This type of ending was very prevalent in 70s films. So to me, it was more a throwback. Leaves you to draw your own conclusions.

[marignymitch]

Mikey Rourke (and those pouty lips) is unwatchable under all circumstances. But I still wish him the best, offscreen.

[HannibalV]

My take on "The Wrestler" is different from the one presented here, though I liked it about as much. Here's my big thought: this isn't a movie about being poor, or economic class, it's about the most dangerous, corrosive drug known to man: fame. The Ram is doing anything and everything he can to hold on to whatever little hits of fame he can still scrape together. He reached the top once, and is now willing to do whatever is necessary to reclaim even a fraction of that. To me, that was what made his final encounter with Pam (who has just as many issues with the need for adulation as he does, in her own way) so heartbreaking: he is consciously throwing away an opportunity for real human connection and (dare to dream) happiness just so he can steal another taste of limelight.
Also, for what it's worth, it's the "Ram Jam", not the "Ram Slam".

[joi2]

I think addiction to fame has many catalysts, some extremely tragic as displayed by this movie. (And these catalysts are not necessarily class specific.) I loved this movie and appreciate the way Mark Blankenship wrote about it above... I had seen it a few weeks ago and enjoyed thinking about it again, here, two weeks later. The resonance is softer; the shock of the sad, violent (Immediate or not immediate) suicide made for a more heart wrenching dissonance that reverberated for days right after I saw it.

I thought this was more of a story about the very human need of of love, family, community and belonging. Rourke's beautiful and subtle performance is what remains with me today, now that my memory has been stirred up. I guess I am finished mourning. And somehow I am over the self mutilation he put himself through in his real life.

[lowlycitizen]

I saw the trailer for this while watching 'Happy Go Lucky", which, by the way, I walked out on (very rare that I do that).

From what little I've seen, I knew that Rourke would be magnificent in this. He's always been a deep actor, but I think he pulled a lot from within with this role. I'm definitely going to watch it.

[piquet]

Saw the movie last night and appreciate your take. I too was taken by the fact that he was really a nice guy and always went out of his way to be sweet. Whether it was a fan, the stripper or his daughter. Sure he made mistakes, but they weren't absolutely horrible blunders that in my opinion are Hollywood cliche' purposely dropping your emotions to the floor. Honestly I kept waiting for it but thankfully it never came.
It was nice to to watch something genuine.
BUT I am not a fan of these blackout endings that are now so en vogue. Like Sopranos or killing the main character off scene in No Country for Old Men. Call me shallow. But I need to see closure. I think it's only fair when a director asks it's audience to get so close. Honestly I see it as a cop out for not wanting to show a side of yourself and pseudo-int­ellectuall­y arrogant.

[Mark Blankenship - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Piquet,

I take your point about the prevalence of blackout endings. Some of them really do seem like cop-outs, like that crash-to-black on "The Sopranos."

But in "The Wrestler," I think the blackout was almost the only ending that could have made sense: Aronofsky and Siegel make such a point of balancing what they portray, of showing the light and the dark of it, that a definite conclusion could have seemed like an unwelcome moral judgment.

If we see the Ram die, then the movie becomes a pity-fest. If we see him live, it gets a phony sense of "Rocky" uplift. Neither one of those would have felt right (to me.) By leaving us with a picture of The Ram suspended in mid-air, we can better see him as caught between his various worlds. The fact that he can't leave any of them fits what the rest of the movie has told us.

[eagledavey]

'Pam, the stripper, hates her dead end career' Two things here. One, stripper and career should never be included in the same sentence, and why is Hollywood fascinated with poor people? This movie is gonna bomb. Trailer parks, wrestling and strippers, three things poor people like me can get plenty of any day of the week, even on Sundays after church. We arent gonna pay hard earned cash to see this, even though I love Marisa Tomei and the prospect of her on stage removing her clothing will be more than enough reason to look for this on the Wal-mart 5 dollar rack in a year or so.

[piquet]

weak take....

[JailNeoconVicts]

Too bad. You're missing a really sweet, genuine movie that just happens to be set in the wrestling world. Everyone in this, even the minor characters, like the muscle-bound drug dealer, feel more rounded and human than anything in most of the other big Oscar contenders (with the exception of Slumdog Millionaire).