The Iron Claw review – a heart­break­ing dis­sec­tion of fra­ter­nal tragedy

In a world of big hair, big out­fits and even big­ger egos, pro-wrestlers know you’ve got to have a gim­mick to stand out. Fritz Von Erich – for­mer­ly Jack Adkisson – under­stood this, hav­ing trained under leg­endary pro­mot­er Stu Hart, who gave him his sport­ing mon­ick­er and paired him up with key­fabe broth­er Wal­ter ​“Wal­do Von Erich” Sieber as, er, a vil­lain­ous Nazi dou­ble act. While he achieved mod­est suc­cess in his own right, Fritz would come into his own as the patri­arch of the Von Erich fam­i­ly, encour­ag­ing his sons Kevin, David, Ker­ry, Mike and Chris to fol­low him into the ring.

Sad­ly tragedy loomed large in the Von Erich fam­i­ly – five of Fritz and his wife Doris’s sons, includ­ing Jack Jr who died in an acci­dent when he was six-years-old, would die between 1959 and 1993, three by sui­cide. These events led to spec­u­la­tion about a Von Erich fam­i­ly curse, but in actu­al­i­ty high­light the pit­falls of pro­fes­sion­al wrestling, as well as the immense expec­ta­tions placed upon the Von Erich boys by their father.

It’s easy to under­stand what appealed about the Von Erich sto­ry to Sean Durkin, whose pre­vi­ous two fea­tures deal sim­i­lar­ly in famil­ial ten­sions and self-mythol­o­gis­ing. Martha Mar­cy May Mar­lene​‘s haunt­ing explo­ration of a young woman’s recov­ery after leav­ing a cult announced Eliz­a­beth Olsen to audi­ences, while The Nest was anchored by stun­ning per­for­mances by Car­rie Coon and Jude Law. His work deft­ly bal­ances rig­or­ous act­ing with spar­ing dia­logue that some­times verges on aus­tere; The Iron Claw – named for the Von Erichs’ sig­na­ture wrestling move – seems to hint at this rela­tion­ship between the nat­ur­al and uncanny.

Zac Efron, erst­while Dis­ney kid who’s been qui­et­ly turn­ing in com­pelling, under­seen per­for­mances amid more typ­i­cal roles, plays Kevin Von Erich, the eldest sur­viv­ing and ​“sec­ond favourite” son. A sweet, pater­nal young­ster with the physique of He-Man and mahogany spray tan of a Love Island con­tes­tant, he just wants to make his fam­i­ly proud, which for Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany) means fol­low­ing in his foot­steps. Kevin push­es him­self phys­i­cal­ly, even if he’s always loved his fam­i­ly more than his loves wrestling, but achieves some suc­cess, which grows once he’s joined in the ring by lit­tle broth­er David (Har­ris Dick­in­son), who proves to have more of a nat­ur­al flair for the sport. He takes to the show­boat­ing, the­atri­cal nature of wrestling like a duck to water, and while at first Kevin is proud to be con­tin­u­ing the Von Erich dynasty, Fritz has a nasty habit of pit­ting his sons against one another.

Ten­sions only grow when Ker­ry (Jere­my Allen White) steps into the ring, fresh­ly back in Texas after his dreams of Olympic glo­ry are dashed by the USA’s boy­cott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. While the broth­ers love one anoth­er dear­ly, their father’s relent­less pur­suit of glo­ry dri­ves a con­stant wedge between them, as well as between Kevin and his girl­friend Pam (Lily James) who is patient and sup­port­ive of his career but can’t under­stand why he remains under his father’s thumb. McCallany plays Fritz as a tyrant, steely-eyed and stony-faced, only reward­ing his sons with a kind word when they win a match. To show inter­est in any­thing oth­er than wrestling – such as youngest son Mikey’s (Stan­ley Simons) hopes of pur­su­ing a music career – is to risk his wrath.

The broth­ers, mean­while, are still devot­ed to each oth­er, sweet and sim­ple and soft out­side of the span­dex, sup­port­ing their wins and loss­es even when per­son­al­i­ties clash. Yet they remain with­in their father’s grip, con­stant­ly bat­tling for agency and unable to express their frus­tra­tion and heart­break, such is the pow­er of pater­ni­ty in their world. Durkin deft­ly con­trasts the high camp of the wrestling world, with its osten­ta­tious cos­tumes and soap opera sto­ry­lines, with the sti­fling tra­di­tion­al ideas of mas­culin­i­ty and famil­ial duty which tore the Von Erichs apart, but is care­ful to show that there was a lot of love that exist­ed with­in their unit as well as pain and anger. Efron, Dick­in­son and Allen White are par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pelling, still boy­ish and vul­ner­a­ble while whip­ping around the ring in impres­sive dis­plays of chore­og­ra­phy and smack­talk­ing their oppo­nents. The trio of per­for­mances, impres­sive in their restraint and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence, bow dif­fer­en­tial­ly under the mighty dark cloud that is McCallany’s equal­ly impres­sive, gen­uine­ly hor­ri­fy­ing turn.

An elec­tri­fy­ing­ly 80s sound­track selec­tion and Jen­nifer Starzyk’s peri­od accu­rate cos­tume work cre­ate a sense of the great joy that wrestling brought to the Von Erichs, while Mátyás Erdé­ly (who also shot The Nest) cap­tures the dry heat and hazy Tex­an sunshine’s sharp con­trast to the bright lights of the audi­to­ri­um. As in all the best sports movies, there’s a won­der­ful kineti­cism to his cin­e­matog­ra­phy, rev­el­ling in phys­i­cal toil, but just as keen to reflect the moments of per­son­al tur­moil – the pain and the glo­ry that seemed inex­tri­ca­ble to the Von Erichs.

The Iron Claw doesn’t quite record the full extent of the family’s trau­ma – the sto­ry omits youngest son, Chris, who was unable achieve suc­cess due to health issues despite his great love of wrestling, and he died by sui­cide at the age of 21 after three of his broth­ers had already passed. In an inter­view with Vari­ety Durkin admit­ted he had writ­ten a script that includ­ed Chris, but ​“there was a rep­e­ti­tion to it, and it was one more tragedy that the film couldn’t real­ly with­stand.” While this ver­sion of events is per­haps not as accu­rate, its emo­tion­al hon­esty and nar­ra­tive sin­cer­i­ty is unques­tion­able. It’s an incred­i­bly heavy and sober­ing film, but one that has been made in the spir­it of pay­ing trib­ute to the Von Erich boys. Their ded­i­ca­tion, pas­sion and love for one anoth­er shines through, empha­sis­ing that the dogged pur­suit of glo­ry alone is no guar­an­tee of it, and all of them deserved so much bet­ter than the hand they were dealt.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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