The Wrestler's failure is that it's actually very true to real life and, thus, doesn't have the glamour that Rocky does.
The Wrestler is a much better film but due to the popularity of wrestling being described as "fake", only wrestling fans and film types will watch it or understand its true explanation of what those wrestlers go through.
And the article seems to have fallen into the same trap, judging the film on preconceived ideas of what you "should" be watching.
I've been watching professional wrestling since 1984 and know all the ins and outs and could relate to everything he was going through, but, as with a lot of films, if you don't have an encyclopaedic knowledge of of the specialist subject, you can't really understand the point, especially in something as niche as wrestling (you can all be fanbois about Batman and Superman and Spiderman without even having read an issue of the comic, but wrestling is totally different).
|