Mickey Rourke’s Oscar Pitch: ‘You Change, or You Blow Your Fucking Brains Out’

After picking up its hardware in Venice and a distribution deal in Toronto, Mickey Rourke’s comeback The Wrestler screened for the first time in the United States this morning in New York. We crashed the joint, and we can confirm that everything you’ve heard about Rourke’s Oscar future is essentially on the nose: He’ll nab a Best Actor nomination for his performance as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a 40-something pro wrestler on the downswing with pretty everything in his life including his relationship with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), his hang-ups with a stripper (Marisa Tomei) and his own tormented perspective on aging. That said, it’s sort of a marvel of accessibility and not nearly the downer we expected from feel-bad master Darren Aronofsky; after the nihilist pageantry of last year’s There Will Be Blood, the Academy will eat this up come February.