Whenever it was that The Wrestler came out, I headed over to a smaller movie theatre in Harvard Square to check it out.

The movie is intense for a couple reasons.  The story itself is about this burnt out, on his last leg wrestler that can’t even pay the rent for his beat up little trailer that he lives in.  But it’s also intense because you can’t separate the actor from the role.  Mickey Rourke’s performance feels hauntingly real.  I realize that Rourke is a great actor but I got the feeling he really related to the character in a way that no other actor could have.  This causes the audience to be fully absorbed and fully vested in the film, something you can easily feel from the other people watching the movie.

At a certain point in the movie, Rourke’s character, Randy, comes home to his trailer after going through heart surgery.  For some insane reason, Randy decides to go for a run in the woods and shortly after, collapses to the ground.

Right at this moment, I hear a woman in the back of the theater dialing 911.  I can’t make out the details but I can hear that she’s trying to get an ambulance to the theater because someone just passed out.  I look back at the movie screen and see Randy passing out.  Now I’m wondering if she’s trying to call for Randy.

Suddenly, the film stopped and the lights came on.  I looked towards the back of the theater and about 30 feet away, I could see these two feet sticking out into the aisle.  I couldn’t see the rest of the body so it looked like the beginning of the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East and all you see is her feet.

Sadly, as it turned out, there was an elderly woman that passed out in the back of the theater right at the same time Randy collapsed on screen.  An ambulance did show up and take her away but none of us knew what became of this poor old lady.

After the lady was gone, the guy controlling the projector said, “Thank you for being awesome.”  But he said it in a way that made me believe that some sort of theater emergency manual told him to say it or because his manager ordered him to say it.

And I love that awesome has become this:

Once the movie ended and everyone started to leave, the film projector and manager stood in the hallway.  As we passed by them, they handed us coupons for a free small popcorn (or could be used towards the purchase of a large popcorn).  Every time they handed out a coupon, they said, “Thanks for being awesome.”

So now it’s very clear.  We’re not as awesome as we thought we were.  The whole time we thought we were LARGE popcorn awesome but it turned out we were only SMALL popcorn awesome.

Moral: 1) Old lady, I hope you’re okay.  2) Now you know how to get free popcorn.