The Pitch: The Von Erichs were one of professional wrestling’s greatest dynasties, dominating the ring in the 1970s and 1980s with the gift of good branding (a group of tight-knit brothers and their legendary wrestler father), killer kayfabe, and their signature move, the “iron claw.”
But outside the ring, the Von Erichs struggled against a string of personal tragedies: As father Fritz (Holt McCallany) pushed his sons further and further along the pipeline to a world championship, one brother after another — David (Harris Dickinson), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), and youngest Mike (Stanley Simons) suffered one horrible twist of fate after another.
And in the middle, there’s the oldest surviving brother, Kevin (Zac Efron), living with the grief of seeing the so-called “Von Erich curse” lay waste to his family. At the same time, he struggles against the ambitions of his exacting, career-minded father — and the fear the curse will pass down to his wife Pam (Lily James) and their children.
My Four Wrestling Sons: Writer/director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Nest) has always seemed, in part, interested in the power structures of family — how they uplift and stifle us in equal measure, especially when in the stranglehold of a domineering father figure. With The Iron Claw, those concerns are writ large in a suitably big, tear-jerking melodrama, one that feels ripped right out of an Arthur Miller play.
From its opening scene, a black-and-white wrestling match that feels like the NWA borrowed a page from Raging Bull, The Iron Claw sets the stage for a family both uplifted and destroyed by the competitiveness of professional wrestling. Father Fritz (McCallany, a study in calculated paternalism) is a stern taskmaster whose idea of supporting his boys is to pit them against each other for his approval. “I rank all you boys, you know that,” he says early on, “but the rankings can change.” It’s clear that he sees Kevin et al as an extension of his own failed wrestling career: Their successes are his and damned if he isn’t going to do everything he can to put a World Championship belt in the ranch house he shares with his boys and wife Doris (Maura Tierney).
Second Oldest Brother Syndrome: But coloring the granular rankings and subtle manipulation of their father is the brothers’ deep, abiding love for each other, which Durkin plays out with remarkable charm. Each brother exists on a sliding scale between their own dreams and those of their father: Kerry’s Olympic dreams (dashed by Carter’s decision to pull out of the 1980 Olympics due to the USSR’s involvement in Afghanistan) and Mike’s love of music.
The Iron Claw (A24)
David lacks Kevin’s brawn, or his ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps. But Fritz notes his talents in the performative aspects of wrestling — kayfabe, cutting promos, and shit-talking in the ring. They’re all victims of Fritz’s manipulation, as is Tierney’s Maura, herself stunning as the matriarch who must suffer so many losses that she can’t bring herself to wear the same black dress to another child’s funeral.
But it’s Efron’s Kevin that keeps the whole thing together, the teen idol-turned-yoked hunk putting in a performance of remarkable restraint and unbridled physicality. As the family’s tragedies compound, Kevin holds everyone else aloft, Atlas-like, on his cannonball shoulders. But Durkin keeps us focused on Kevin’s withheld turmoil, trying his best to live up to the family legacy while desperately trying to keep them alive and safe.
Durkin positions Kevin as a man with a nearly preternatural sense of when tragedy will strike; he sees these disasters coming but is powerless to stop them. It even affects the family he’s attempting to build with Pam; shortly after one brother’s death, he withdraws from them into his training, hoping like hell the curse won’t rub off on them. Efron plays all these moments with remarkable subtlety, volumes of pain washing over the actor’s searching, cobalt eyes.
The Iron Claw (A24)
Wanna Live That Way Forever: Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély bathes us in the ambers and wood-paneled nostalgia of the ’70s and ’80s, painting a picture of an American Dream coated in sweat and blood and serenity. That’s most acutely felt in the wrestling sequences themselves, which play out like grand spiritual battles in the arena — they’re intricately choreographed but not showy (notwithstanding a late-film appearance from Ric Flair, a one-scene-wonder masterclass thanks to Aaron Dean Eisenberg).
The ’70s graphics, the corny title cards, the thumping needle drops from hair-metal bands… All of it builds the Texas Sportatorium into a metaphysical arena with villains both external and internal to fight. The period details make these sequences feel both of a time and out of time, turning the vintage pageantry of old-school pro wrestling into something operatic.
The Verdict: Given how sensitive and caring The Iron Claw is towards the Von Erich family, it’s understandable to bristle at the fact that there is, in fact, a fifth Von Erich brother who’s cut out of the film entirely, presumably for time. (Brother Chris, the youngest, tragically shot himself in 1991 at the tender age of 21.) But it’s hard to fault the film too much for that, considering the reverence it and Durkin have for the Von Erichs: a brotherhood forged in the hot steel of their father’s expectations, whose love for each other transcends the bonds of life and death itself.
Wrestling, at its best, is a mythic art, an extension of the traditions of ancient Greece — with all the grand pageantry and theater that turns mere mortals into titans. Durkin knows this, and uses all that bigness to startling effect, transforming the tragedy of an American family into a bittersweet legend.
Where’s It Playing? The Iron Claw suplexes its way into theaters on December 22nd.
Trailer:
