Clip of the Day: The Wrestler, ‘I Just Don’t Want You To Hate Me’

Hey All. Today’s clip from our Mickey Rourke week here on Next Projection comes from The Wrestler. Like I mentioned, while everyone was saying this was the “resurrection of Mickey Rourke”, I feel this is more the “ascention of Mickey Rourke’. Where he goes from being just a popular badass to “actor that blows everyone away and silences all naysayers once and for all”. And with a role that was pretty much tailor made to him, it’s no wonder he was able to capture the hearts and imaginations of everyone, with this scene in particular doing a lot of heavy lifting. It’s a deceptively simple scene of a father trying to make things right with his estranged daughter. If handled wrong, it could become like the “I coulda been a contender, Charlie” scene in On The Waterfront, which itself is not a bad scene per se, but one that’s been ripped off and parodied so much that it’s almost lost all it’s meaning. But with this scene, there are no acting crutches, no music, no directorial flourishes, no anything. It’s just straight from the heart, which in cases like this, is all you need.

Luke Annand

Visit My Website / View My Other Posts

Film geek, podcaster and newly minted IATSE member from Regina, Saskatchewan. I met Don McKellar once, and he told me that Quentin Tarantino is exactly like me.