Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler took the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, scoring the Golden Lion for himself and for star Mickey Rourke. (Source: The Circuit @ Variety)
I am very pleased to hear this news, because I always like watching actors reinvent themselves or find new aspects to their craft and explore the shit out of them, and for Rourke to have been a part of a project that played to his strengths while delving into Aronofsky’s usual existential matter is pretty damn gratifying. The comeback story is also a compelling one as well, and I’m a huge sucker for underdogs. It’s why Sunset Boulevard — both the movie and the musical — is such a compelling story, it’s why you watch Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, it’s how movies will always be a part of the human entertainment experience.
Though it’ll be playing at the New York Film Festival this October, I can’t wait till this gets picked up by a distributor for wider distribution.
UPDATE (9/8 3:49 PM): Ask and ye shall receive, Trish. Variety’s Anne Thompson broke the news (mere hours after you first posted this) that Fox Searchlight has picked up the film for a cool $4 mil. It’s assumed (although I didn’t see anything concrete) that they’re going for an “Oscar-qualifying late-year platform with a wider release in January.” — Gordon