“The Smashing Machine”: The Intimacy of the Wrestler

The cinematic appeal of fighting, fighters and the behind-the-scenes aspects of their lives (The Smashing Machine, The Wrestler, Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby, Fat City…) is very powerful. The fact that the survival instinct that drives fighting has become so sophisticated thanks to technique and has been subjected to rules and a ring to turn it into a spectacle is one of the most curious drives of human beings. Exposing oneself to such a primal situation when there is no real reason to do so, while notions that have nothing to do with instinct, such as victory or defeat, are at stake, is a mixture of motivations that is difficult to explain.

The Smashing Machine is the nickname given to American wrestler and martial artist Mark Kerr, who was at the height of his career in the 1990s and 2000s. It is the first feature film that Benny Safdie has directed alone, without co-writing with his brother Josh (Uncut Gems, Good Time, Heaven Knows What). This biopic, presented in competition at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, stars fellow wrestler Dwayne Johnson “The Rock” with great sensitivity. Both wrestlers were present at the press conference, exchanging looks of admiration and affection. And from the way the director talks about the wrestler’s universe, it is clear that the sentimental component has been key in the making of this film. When Johnson described Kerr, he called him a “walking contradiction”, a hulk who weighed 120 kilos and was considered for years to be the best wrestler on the planet in his context. At the same time, in The Rock’s own words, he was “the kindest, most tender person in the world”.

The film is about that intimate dimension, with sustained close-ups of the fighter’s gentle gaze, enveloped in the calm and unfathomable vigour of his musculature. Safdie takes the time to draw us into Kerr’s silence: the reticence that masks his addiction to opiates, the pressure he feels to win, and the difficulty he has communicating with his partner, played by Emily Blunt. The director also tells us about an equally contrasting paradox, describing the community that gave rise to the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the 1990s, a space for testing different martial arts specialities in the ring, where everyone knew and respected each other and, on the other hand, fought brutally. In those days, they earned a living; today, it has become a million-dollar business.

The Smashing Machine is not a film full of explosive moments of adrenaline in the ring, nor does it culminate in an epic final fight. As they fight, we do not see in detail the drops of sweat and blood running down the opponents’ faces because we are always outside the ring. The director always keeps us at a safe distance, almost like watching television or from a front-row seat. Nor are there varied and elaborate martial arts choreographies that leave us speechless; the techniques they use are quite casual and repetitive. These decisions can leave a feeling of frustration for not bringing the viewer closer to the spectacle and the excitement of the contact. Perhaps Safdie is trying to show us that the worst combats for the fighter are his addictions and his girlfriend’s tense emotional turmoil, which we do feel up close.

It may be that focusing on the cliché of the giant’s inner vulnerability does not bring any fundamental originality, that the production is conservative and that the story does not reflect in greater depth an external historical context that could have helped to better analyse the character, but it is a coherent film, devoted with great care to the figure of Mark Kerr and with a dramatic performance by Dwayne Johnson that no one expected.