The Iron Claw

How do we gain immortality? It's something that humans have pursued throughout their history, and during most of it, the easiest way to ensure you'd be remembered long after you were put in the ground was through combat. Winning great victories, enduring crushing defeats would make a man a legend for centuries. In the modern day, where the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and stardom infects everything it touches, and where people don't really fancy dying by the sword or taking heavy blows to the head to leave a legacy, we have even invented a way for people to showcase themselves as glorious combatants without actually risking their lives (in most cases, anyway.)

Pro wrestling allows audiences in their thousands to come and ogle men built like Ancient Greek statues in storied matches that leave the heroes either coming out on top or vowing for vengeance in the next bout. It sounds ridiculous that people still adore men who based themselves entirely on one-liners and wearing jean shorts to their matches, and in a way, it is. But when you take a closer look at pro wrestling, you find that this scripted sport can house some of the darkest, most tragic stories of the last half-century.

The Iron Claw gives us one of those stories. Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simmons play Kevin, Kerry, David, and Mike Von Erich, a family of wrestlers led by their overbearing and ruthlessly strict father Fritz who are chasing their own immortality. Prior to watching The Iron Claw, I wasn't overly familiar with the Von Erichs. As a child, I'd watched wrestling, but despite finding the industry to be consistently fascinating, my interest in the product itself has waned. You don't need to know anything about wrestling to see The Iron Claw, though, as the film isn't really about wrestling. It's about a family whose lives revolved around this sport.

You do get to see a good chunk of pro wrestling in the movie. Kevin, our point-of-view character for The Iron Claw, is absolutely obsessed with it. It's his lifeblood, which explains why the only times we're put in the ring is when he's there, too. At first, I wasn't convinced at how wrestling was portrayed in the movie. It felt almost like the creators were making it out to seem real, which to me would have just made it feel like a sad Nacho Libre. But, the more you linger in that ring, the more you realise that to Kevin, it is real. It's not an actual fight, but it does take a toll on his body, and it does matter who wins and loses. As he explains early on, getting a title is like a job promotion, and he wants nothing more than to earn that promotion.

The onus of the film is placed so heavily on Kevin Von Erich that I don't think it would have succeeded without Zac Efron. At first, his overly beefy appearance in his tighty whities is almost laughable, but as the story goes on and the curse of the Von Erichs begins to feel more and more real, you need the strength of Efron's performance to carry that great emotional weight. Efron is absolutely transcendent in this movie, and while all of the brothers, especially Harris Dickinson, do an outstanding job, I genuinely cannot believe that Efron isn't getting more awards-season buzz about this role.

I won't enter into any spoilers here, but I will say that this movie hits like an absolute truck. The emotional power is something that you don't really expect from a wrestling movie, but it shows that the creators took this profession seriously, and weren't afraid to show its ugliness. It's not a drama just focused on a family where wrestling is dropped into the background, and what is particularly engaging is that it doesn't even linger long in the drama. Tragedy after tragedy strike the Von Erichs but rarely is the viewer or the family given a moment to really let any of them sink in. There's a simple acceptance to everything that goes on, even though inside you can tell Kevin is falling apart.

The relationship the brothers have with one another and their father is addicting. Listening to the silence that occurs whenever the father steps into a room, or watching the colour drain from the boys' faces, you might wonder why any of them choose to stay in that family. Then, from watching all of the brothers together, you realise that they are the pillars holding their house up. Were one of them to leave, the whole structure comes down. They look after each other as best they can, even if they are each stunted emotionally by the way they were raised. These characters are beautifully written, and I especially found the mother to be a surprising scene-stealer. It would've been all too easy to depict her as a one-dimensional boy mum, who cares about nothing except God and ensuring that she talks down to all of their prospective girlfriends, but at the end one of the only qualms I had was that we did not get to see more of her.

The Iron Claw is a tremendously powerful, beautifully acted and brilliantly directed story. It is profound without being pretentious, telling a tale of tragedy and brotherhood that will leave you hollow by the end. If you're a brother, I highly recommend bringing some tissues to this latest example of A24 brilliance.