El luchador

"Rourke (...) trouve enfin le rôle de sa vie."

— Mathieu Carratier de Première

"(...) on ne peut qu’admirer la réelle maîtrise de la mise en scène que possède Aronofsky. Il offre à Randy un final de toute beauté, où le personnage acquière une dimension mythique, grâce aux différents plans choisis par le réalisateur. L’environnement sonore est là pour transformer. Le réalisateur transforme son héros en un Icare des temps moderne (...)."

— Anne-Louise Echevin de Comme au cinéma

"(...) Rourke creates a galvanizing, humorous, deeply moving portrait that instantly takes its place among the great, iconic screen performances (...) Spare but vital, and with the increasingly arty mannerisms of Aronofsky's previous work completely stripped away, the film has the clarity and simplicity of a great Hemingway short story -- there's nothing extraneous, the characters must face up to their limited options in life, and the dialogue in Robert Siegel's superior script is inflected with the poetry of the everyday."

— Tood McCarthy de Variety

"“The Wrestler,” Darren Aronofsky’s fourth feature (...) shows that, in both movies and wrestling, the line between reality and play-acting may be less clear than we assume (...) Shooting his battered hero mainly in trudging, hand-held tracking shots, Mr. Aronofsky here makes a convincing show of brute realism. The story that emerges is disarmingly sweet, indeed at times downright saccharine -a familiar parable of squandered hopes and second chances (...) Every fight is a miniature morality play."

— A. O. Scott de NY Times

"Something about this gutsy, heartfelt drama from screenwriter Robert D Siegel and director Darren Aronofsky alchemises Rourke's conceit into a terrifically engaging, likable and even vulnerable performance. Happily for them both, Aronofsky appears to have caught the 52-year-old Rourke at just the right time with just the right role."

— Peter Bradshaw de The Guardian