Oscar buzz-worthy winners: Best Actor

By Ben Childs

Mickey Rourke's performance as washed-up professional wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson in Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" is as emotionally engrossing as it is alarmingly real.

The movie may have been forgotten by the academy (though not by the critics -- its Rotten Tomatoes score, 98 percent, is higher than any of the best picture nominees), but Rourke's performance will not be. He already took home the Golden Globe, and on Feb. 22, he'll get the Oscar he deserves.

The movie's plot, in which a once-great star gets a last shot at glory, is standard movie fare. The supporting characters are relatively typical as well: Evan Rachel Wood plays the alienated, weepy daughter and Marisa Tomei plays the stripper with a heart of gold. Their performances are good, but it's Rourke that makes this movie worth watching.

The film has a documentary feel to it that makes Rourke's performance real. Rourke looks like a professional wrestler -- he took a number of trips to the hospital during filming and doesn't deny using steroids and other substances abused by professional wrestlers. The story is so true that wrestling fans have been debating which actual wrestler the movie is based on since so many have trashed their bodies like The Ram has. They were all someone's hero, and now they're either crippled or dead.

Perhaps it is this added reality which makes Rourke's performance truly heartbreaking. There are numerous scenes, like when he's keeping himself amused at his day job at a supermarket deli counter, or signing autographs with other has-beens, where I felt like both laughing and crying. His "broken down piece of meat" speech may even top Brando's "just a bum" from "On The Waterfront" as film history's greatest has-been monologue.

I believe that films should stand by themselves, but the similarities between The Ram and Rourke -- both '80s stars who lived by their own rules -- are unavoidable. This is as much about the comeback of Rourke as anything else. The performance is authentic because he is playing himself.

Ben Childs is a senior English major.