This afternoon, I saw The Wrestler with a couple of friends (and writing group partners). It’s very good, if not exactly remarkable, almost solely because Mickey Rourke is so good. The rest of the cast and Darren Aronofsky deserve some of the credit, too, but it’s largely Rourke who elevates what’s otherwise a fairly predictable paint-by-numbers melodrama. I’m tempted to revisit (or visit for the first time) some of Rourke’s other work. There are a lot of really awful movies in there — you can’t have the comeback without the fall from grace — but the man is very gifted and natural actor.