Format: Blu-Ray from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.
I don’t care at all about sports. I used to, up until about 20 years ago. I lived and died by the Bulls, Bears, and White Sox. These days, though I don’t have time for it. Even when I did care about sports, I was never into wrestling. One of my brothers was for a time, and my wife’s cousin still is to some extent. I understand the appeal of it—it’s theater on a grand scale, and while the matches are scripted, I would never suggest that the people doing the wrestling aren’t athletes. Now that I’ve said all of this, it’s not going to be a surprise that I watched The Iron Claw, which is a wrestling movie, but it’s also a movie about family and about tragedy.
We will begin with Fritz von Erich (Holt McCallany), who is a wrestler coming up in the sporting world. But we’re going to be far more concerned with the sons of Fritz and Doris (Maura Tierney), who will follow in their father’s footsteps. Much of what is going to follow will be what we are told is the curse of the von Erich family—we won’t see the death of the eldest son at a young age, but we’ll hear about it. The rest of the film will be about the near constant tragedy experienced by the family, a large amount of it clearly caused by the wrestling world. p> The oldest of the remaining von Erich children is Kevin (Zac Efron, who looks like he’s put on 100 pounds of muscle). When we start, he is the son who is positioned to have a breakout in the wrestling world, followed by fourth son David (Harris Dickinson). Third son Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) is not in the wrestling line because he is training for the Olympics in the discus, but true to the family curse, it happens to be in 1980 and the U.S. Olympic team boycotts the Moscow Olympics. This causes Kerry to join the family business. Youngest son Mike (Stanley Simmons) seems more inclined to music than he does to wrestling.
Essentially, the movie is going to be a series of disappointments for Kevin von Erich. When he appears to be on the cusp of a title shot, the opportunity is given to David instead, but David dies in a hotel room on the road. Kerry is given the next shot and claims a world title, but loses a foot in a motorcycle accident. Mike is eventually forced into the ring and is injured, suffers toxic shock during surgery, and eventually kills himself, no longer able to even play music.
For Kevin, the only thing in his life that seems to work at all is his wife Pam (Lily James), but as his family falls apart around him, Kevin distances himself from her and their children, convinced that the family curse will claim them as it has all of his brothers.
There’s a lot that happens in The Iron Claw, and the movie is incredibly dense. It feels like tragedy layered upon tragedy throughout, and in that respect, it’s difficult to watch. This is very much a misery parfait movie, and while there are a few bright spots here and there, it feels very much like a spiral down. So much of this starts at the head of the family in the form of Fritz. This is a man who literally tells his children how he ranks them and openly pits them against each other for his favor. He’s the type of man who is actually wrong about everything but is convinced he’s never been wrong.
While Jeremy Allen White is sort of the flavor of the month thanks to The Bear, I want to talk about Zac Efron first. For another actor, the role of Kevin von Erich gets a substantial amount of Oscar buzz, but it didn’t for Zac Efron. It’s my contention that this is because he is Zac Efron and he’s not going to be taken that seriously. This is the sort of role, though, that might get him taken seriously the next time he does something like this. This shows that he has the chops to really do this, and that he’s capable of more than holding a tune and dribbling a basketball.
My main issue with The Iron Claw is that it compresses a great deal of the actual story into a very short period. We’re led to believe, for instance, that Kerry’s motorcycle accident happens immediately after his title fight when it actually happened years later. The film completely ignores the actual youngest son, Chris von Erich. The real-life Chris also killed himself, and so in a sense, I get it—it would feel like almost parody for an additional terrible tragedy to strike this family. But still, it’s got to hurt when a film is made about your family and you don’t make the cut.
It’s a hard movie to enjoy, but it’s very well made, and I’m happy to have seen it. Just make sure you’re not already depressed going in, because this won’t help.
Why to watch The Iron Claw: It’s inherently dramatic.
Why not to watch: The “true story” label is difficult to accept with the changes from history.