http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/news/2009-02-24-evan-rachel-wood_N.htm?csp=34 No, not Mickey Rourke, although the way people talk about his performance you might wonder if he could do Lear. They’re talking about Evan Rachel Wood, who plays the daughter in the movie. She’s going to be doing some Juliet. Saw The Wrestler last week. The acting is very, very good. The writing is very, very good. The movie itself, and the directing, are pretty disturbingly violent. But the overarching story, this idea of a real life human being who spends his life only knowing how to do one thing, is perhaps the most upsetting. You get a clear glimpse of how horrible it is to do what he does, but an equally clear look at how he fails at doing everything else, and thus has no choice but to do this other horrible thing over and over again, forever. It actually reminded me of the scifi classic “Armor”, by John Steakley (I think I have that name right), about the soldier who, every time he thinks he can sit and rest, gets sent off to another battle, because he is a human machine that is just too good at it and not capable of anything else. It’s the kind of thing that makes you walk out of the theatre with your first thought being, “Life is not like that” and your second being, “God, I hope it’s not.”
