More Wrestler

Took in The Wrestler again last night, this time with a much bigger audience. Like all truly great movies, it seemed shorter, slighter, quicker. It barely began, and it was away again. Rather than write another rambling love letter, here's a couple of rambling love points I completely failed to make in my previous review. No doubt it'll end up longer than the review it supplements. A touch more specific this time, so if you haven't had the pleasure yet, you might not want to read on.

1. Unashamed male tenderness.

Professional Wrestling is a soap opera. The choreographed dance men can watch and enjoy without ever feeling like their sexuality is being called into question. If you're a fan, this, despite the oily tanned muscles on show, is all butch. If you're a fan. Otherwise: marginalised and largely centralised since it's 80s heyday, the theatre clings desperately to the invented idea of 'sports entertainment'. It's unloved. It's critically derelict. It's fake. It's for dolts and thugs. It's gay even.

The Wrestler portrays these slighted lunks as a generous family of of back-patters, all eager to dole out praise for their fellow performers. Ram is treated like a God by the kids. They call him sir, and fawn when he compliments them. They love him. His steroid dealer giggles like a child when Ram inspects his muscles. The titty bar bouncer Big Chris can barely get a crossed word out when Ram starts acting the prick.

In-ring nemesis Ayatollah is concerned when Ram visibly starts to flag. He lies down and begs Ram to end the match. After hearing some bemused indifference from a group of women exiting the cinema last night, it's hard not to see The Wrestler as a purely male emotional experience. I'm not even sure why. Is it deep seated gender identity? Fulfilment in working to provide? Being unable to adequately express your feelings? At it's core, Wrestler is about a failure pulling himself together long enough to shine very very brightly. It's about doing one thing exceptionally well, while everything else crumbles.

2. Music.

It's the moment that Ram's rambling guitar theme finally stops it's confused circling, transforming into a triumphant, throbbing rock and roll pound. It's Springsteen's close-out poem to earnest losers - a fee-less favour to his friend Mickey Rourke. It's providing context for a Guns N' Roses hit I never cared even a little bit for: clod-rock melodrama united to wonderful, trembling image. In The Wrestler, Sweet Child o' Mine sounds like a transcendental angel choir; an unspeakably mournful, hair prickling melody.