"The Wrestler" by Mickey Rourke

The buzz that’s been building since The Wrestler won the Venice Film Festival’s top prize earlier this year was that it marks Mickey Rourke’s undisputed comeback as a serious actor, thanks to an Oscar-worthy performance. Possibly for the first time when it comes to anything involving professional wrestling; you can believe the hype.

Rourke is heartbreakingly believable as over-the-hill but still-in-the-game Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a former champion reduced to appearing in cheap local matches and hawking videos of his past glories in school gyms. He lives in a trailer he can’t afford, works part-time unloading trucks, and wears a parka held together with duct tape. He describes himself as “an old, broken-down piece of meat,” his career hasn’t been kind to his kisser, and he wears a hearing aid—but at least his stringy, shoulder-length mane is still real.

It would have been easy for Rourke to play the role as mere declining-years desperation, but he gives us much, much more than

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