Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Sean Durkin
Starring: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Maura Tierney, Holt
McCallany, Lily James
Three films into his under-appreciated career, writer/director
Sean Durkin has completed what might be consider a "Father
knows best" trilogy. All three of his movies are about fathers or father
figures who destroy their "families" with their controlling nature. In his
debut, Martha Marcy May Marlene, it was a sinister cult leader. In
The Nest
it was a father desperate to escape his working class roots and take a
shortcut to becoming a member of the landed gentry. In
The Iron Claw it's a real life figure, wrestler turned mogul
Fritz Von Erich, whose commodification of his sons resulted directly or
indirectly in a series of tragedies that would be considered overly
melodramatic if they were conceived by a screenwriter.
After an opening flashback to his wrestling days, we cut to 1979 where we
find Fritz (Holt McCallany) living with his wife Doris (Maura Tierney) and three of their four sons - Kevin (Zac Efron), David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simons) - on a ranch in rural Texas. A fourth
son, Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), is away with the US Olympic team,
hoping to compete in the Disqus event at the following year's tournament.
When the US pulls out of the Moscow Olympics as part of an anti-Soviet
boycott, a dejected Kerry returns to his family and takes up
wrestling.
It's a setup straight out of a glossy 1980s American soap opera, with four
sons wrestling, both literally and figuratively, for their father's favour.
At the breakfast table Fritz ranks his sons in order of preference. We wait
for a collective laugh. It doesn't come. "The rankings aren't set in stone,"
he tells his sons. Fritz treats his sons how awards obsessives treat movies,
valuing them only by the trinkets they might add to his mantelpiece. He
constantly argues that they're not doing enough to fulfil their potential,
but he has no interest in their own ambitions and dreams. I was reminded of
a line from another recent film,
American Fiction: "Potential is what people see when what's in front of them isn't good
enough."
Kevin, David and Kerry willingly follow their father's wishes of entering
the squared circle. Mike, the youngest and skinniest brother, has little
interest in wrestling. He wants to be a rock star, performing at secret
college gigs and rehearsing with a garage band while his parents think he's
rehearsing with a classical orchestra. His father was himself a musician but
gave it up because he saw wrestling as a more lucrative option. His mother
ended her interest in painting when she married Fritz. Theirs is a house of
single-minded ambition, with an attic full of dusty dreams.
As Fritz pushes his sons to what he considers greatness, they succumb to a
series of personal tragedies. To cope with the gruelling physicality of
their profession they become addicted to painkillers and harder drugs.
The Iron Claw is a bullfighting drama told from the
perspective of the bull. The Von Erich boys are coralled by their powerful
father, given a few precious minutes of blood-soaked freedom whenever he
unleashes them in the ring. The title refers to the signature finishing move
of the Von Erichs, but also to the hold Fritz has over his family.
With each son struck by successive tragedy as though they were teenagers in
a
Final Destination
movie, Kevin comes to believe his family is subject to a curse. This drives
him away from his own wife (a miscast Lily James, unconvincing as a
daughter of the Alamo) and children for fear that they might become
infected. Kevin is unable to stand up to his father and can't rely on his
mother for any support: "That's what your brothers are for," she responds
when he asks if he can have a few words. When Kevin cries out for help from
his father regarding his fears over the emotional state of one of his
brothers, the cruel response is "That's between you and your brother." Fritz
may profit from his sons' blood, but he's also washed his hands of it.
Efron's Kevin is the heart of the film, with the drama largely centred
around the effects his brothers' turmoil has on him. Early on Kevin
struggles to conceal his jealousy as he sees his brothers gifted
opportunities he believes he should have been rewarded, but as tragedy
befalls his brood he develops a survivor's guilt that eats away at his soul.
Despite physically looking like the fittest specimen on the planet, Efron's
sad expression is that of a man wasting away. Newcomer Simons follows his
impressive turn in the 2021 psycho-drama
Superior
with a heartbreaking performance as the runt of the Von Erich litter.
The series of tragedies that befall the Von Erichs may seem ripped from a
bad soap opera, but Durkin actually left out another doomed real life
brother as he felt it would have been one tragedy too many. The passive
manner in which Durkin relates each awful twist, a reflection of Fritz's
stiff upper lip, means the movie never feels melodramatic however. Like its
male protagonists, it keeps its emotions in check until a climactic
emotional outburst that will stir something in the most macho of male
viewers. Durkin's film is a reminder that it's not just natural for men to
shed tears, but necessary.
