In showing Robinson’s struggle against something he can’t conquer—but without demonizing him for his weakness—The Wrestler provides a lesson for all who have watched loved ones flail and fail in their emotional and spiritual battles. It is not an easy film to watch, but it is honest and heartbreaking.
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CAUTIONS:
- Language/Profanity: Lord’s name taken in vain; foul language; crude references to sexuality and female anatomy.
- Drugs/Alcohol: Wrestlers are frequent drug users, and are shown buying, injecting and snorting drugs.
- Sex/Nudity: Bare-chested male wrestlers; multiple scenes of strippers at work; a picture of a topless woman is taped to a wall; store manager watches a porn movie in the back room; Randy engages in casual, noisy sex in a bathroom.
- Violence/Disturbing Imagery: Wrestling violence, much of which is staged, but which also involves cuts with razors and glass, body blows of all sorts; cuts are stitched up; vomiting; chest scar from heart surgery; a man cuts his hand on a deli cheese slicer.
- Religion: A stripper draws a parallel between a wrestler’s life and Jesus’ life, as portrayed in The Passion of the Christ; she quotes Isaiah 53 and says the wrestler has “the same hair” as Jesus.