Bad-boy Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke has bounced back off the ropes, it seems. His latest comeback-themed movie The Wrestler has drawn rave reviews, and the star prize at Venice's Film Festival.Of course, The Wrestler is just another movie, but to hear the media these past couple of weeks, you'd think cinema were a new invention.
Besides the hype over the film itself, much has been made of Mickey Rourke's big comeback, his return to the Hollywood fold, after years in self-imposed exile, not to mention self-destruction. He allowed his career and his personal life to go down the toilet during the Nineties, doing drugs, boozing and all the rest. Predictably, parallels have been drawn between Rourke's life and that of Randy Robinson, his latest character role.
Rourke returned briefly to his first love - boxing, even had a short-lived pro career in the ring. He has spoken of his pugilism as a way to help him focus on getting his life back on track, but it might also be viewed as just more self-punishment.
Hollywood loves a bad-boy-made-good story. Remember Sean Penn? Always on the fringes, never got the Oscar, never seemed to care either. Content to butt his head against convention, choose movies HE wanted to do. Early on, Penn's habit of making odd choices was perhaps best illustrated by his 1985 marriage to then-rising star Madonna. The marriage failed, but then publicity stunts are always short-lived.
In 2004, Penn finally won his Best Actor Oscar for Mystic River. His performance in that (or in any film) wasn't particularly great, but movie awards have nothing to do with talent, just more manipulation and publicity. So Mickey Rourke's isn't the first ultra-hyped, shunned-to-shiny Hollywood story, and it won't be the last.
I'm betting fingersmith Winona Ryder will be the next to reinvent herself and put her shenanigans behind her. If she doesn't get the Academy Award, she can always sneak backstage and toss it in her handbag.
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