The Wrestler is a 2008 American sports drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Robert Siegel. The film stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, and Evan Rachel Wood. Rourke plays an aging professional wrestler who, despite his failing health and waning fame, continues to wrestle due to financial hardship and in an attempt to cling to the success of his 1980s heyday. He also tries to mend his relationship with his estranged daughter and to find romance with a woman who works as a stripper.[3]

The film received critical acclaim and won the Golden Lion Award at the 65th Venice International Film Festival, where it premiered. The success of the film revitalized the career of Mickey Rourke, who went on to receive a BAFTA award, a Golden Globe Award, an Independent Spirit Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Tomei also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Professional wrestler Robin Ramzinski, better known by his ring name Randy “The Ram” Robinson, rose to fame in the 1980s. Now past his prime, Randy wrestles on weekends for independent promotions in New Jersey while living in a trailer park and working part-time at a supermarket under Wayne, a demeaning manager who mocks Randy’s wrestling background. As a regular at a strip club, Randy befriends a stripper named Cassidy who, like Randy, is too old for her job. After winning a local match, Randy agrees to a proposed 20th-anniversary rematch with his most notable opponent, “The Ayatollah”, which Randy hopes could return him to stardom.

Randy intensifies his training, which includes steroid injections. After wrestling in a hardcore match, Randy suffers a heart attack backstage and undergoes coronary artery bypass surgery. His doctor informs him that he nearly died and has to stop taking steroids, and also warns Randy not to wrestle anymore, as his heart can no longer handle the exertion. Reluctantly, Randy decides to retire and begins working a full-time shift at the supermarket’s deli counter.

At Cassidy’s suggestion, Randy visits his estranged daughter Stephanie, whom he had abandoned when she was a child, but she rebuffs him. While helping Randy buy a gift for Stephanie, Cassidy reveals that she has a son. Randy makes romantic advances toward her, which she rejects on the grounds of her job. Later, Randy gives the gift to his daughter and apologizes for abandoning her. The two bond over a visit to a beachfront boardwalk, where he often took her as a child, and agree to meet for dinner on the coming Saturday.

Randy goes to Cassidy’s strip club to thank her, but she once more rejects him, resulting in a heated exchange. Upset, Randy goes to see a wrestling match and finds solace in his wrestling friends. While at a bar with them, he gets drunk, snorts cocaine, has sex with a prostitute in the women’s restroom, then wakes up in her bedroom the next morning. Exhausted, he sleeps the entire day and misses his dinner with Stephanie. He goes to her house to apologize, but she angrily tells him that she never wants to see him again.