I never thought I’d ever write those words, but Mr. Rourke is definitely a contender for Darren Aronofky’s “The Wrestler,” which drew applause at a press screening here after winning the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. It will also be playing the New York Film Festival and be released by Fox Searchlight in December. Rourke gives the performance of his life as a washed-up New Jersey life who reconsiders his life after nearly dying of a heart attack. He touchingly reaches out to a topless dancer (Marisa Tomei), tries to reconcile with his estranged teenage daughter (Rachel Evan Wood and, hilariously, goes to work behind the deli counter of a supermarket. This is a real heart tugger in the vein of “The Champ” — the 1931 version that won a Best Actor Oscar for Wallace Beery, whom the hard-living Rourke more than slightly resembles at this point.