The Tragedy of "The Iron Claw"

I don't know much about professional wrestling, but I've come to the conclusion that films about professional wrestlers make for some very strong movie melodrama.  The mix of these massively exaggerated wrestler personas, with the dangerous, physically punishing nature of the performances, and the exploitative nature of the business, is a very potent combination.  And perhaps no wrestling saga is more tragic than the story of the Von Erich family.

Fritz von Erich (Holt McCallany) is a former wrestler turned promoter, who feels he never got his shot.  He's obsessed with one of his sons becoming a professional wrestling champion, initially pinning his hopes on his oldest, Kevin (Zac Efron).  Younger brother David (Harris Dickinson) is also an up and coming wrestler, while another brother, Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), is training for the Olympics, and the youngest, Mike (Stanley Simons), has an interest in music.  The Von Erichs become more famous as the popularity of professional wrestling explodes in the '80s, and all four brothers eventually enter the ring.  And then, a terrible series of accidents, injuries, and deaths throw the family into turmoil.  Maybe the cause is the long rumored Von Erich curse.  Maybe the cause is something worse.   

I knew the broad outlines of this story before I watched "The Iron Claw," enough to start getting antsy when we were halfway through the movie and nothing terrible had happened to anybody yet.  The sheer enormity of the misfortune that the Von Erichs suffer through is too much for one movie.  In fact, an entire Von Erich brother, Chris, was taken out of the story, and each tragedy still doesn't feel like it has the amount of impact that it should.  There's simply too much that happens too fast for us to process it all.  I still like the film very much for its performances and for its portrayal of professional wrestling as it transformed from smaller regional promotions into the giant televised spectacles they would eventually become.  Directed by Sean Durkin, individual sequences are beautifully executed and very enjoyable to watch.  There's a fantasy sequence toward the end that is simultaneously gorgeous and heartbreaking.      

The actors are all excellent.  We watch the family's fortunes rise and fall from the POV of Kevin, who is able to rise above the whole mess because he has emotional support from outside of the toxic family dynamic - a loving girlfriend, Pam (Lily Collins).  Zach Efron overcomes looking like a He-Man action figure brought to life, to deliver a truly touching, vulnerable performance.  There's an incredible physicality to him in the wrestling scenes, contrasted with Kevin's total powerlessness when it comes to keeping his brothers safe.  I came away from the film the most impressed with Holt McCallany, who doesn't play Fritz as some awful monster, but as a man so fixated on a particular goal and a particular grievance that he ends up sacrificing his whole family to it.  His interactions with his sons are chilling, because he expresses himself so calmly and with such unshakeable authority.  His sons never say no to him because that's simply not an option in his universe.  Maura Tierney also appears in a brief, but illuminating role as the Von Erich mother, Doris, who refuses to get involved.  

I think wrestling fans will appreciate "The Iron Claw," even if it takes a lot of liberties with the facts and doesn't portray professional wrestling in the best light.  Like Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," it's a cautionary tale about broken families and the price of glory, with a special emphasis on the dark side of idolizing an impossible standard of masculinity.  However, it also captures the allure of professional wrestling, and being part of a family and legacy like the Von Erichs.'  You don't see many melodramas with such a masculine bent, that examine relationships among men from this angle, and it's clear we need more of them.  

Durkin's filmography is fairly short, and this is easily the most ambitious project that he's tackled to date.  I think he may have bit off a bit more than he could chew this time, but I want him to keep doing ambitious projects like this, because he's getting awfully close to making something great.   

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