THE IRON CLAW – Review by Pam Grady
As a title, The Iron Claw is both literal and a metaphor. It is the signature move of wrestler Fritz Von Erich when he is about to decimate an opponent in the ring. It also symbolizes the tight grip he holds on the sons who have no real choice except to follow him as the next generation of battling Von Erichs. Writer/director Sean Durkin’s first film since 2020’s The Nest is all at once a sports drama, a family’s biopic, and one of the best depictions of the effects of toxic masculinity ever committed to the screen and a haunting evocation of family dysfunction.
Not content to bask in his own record of success as both an athlete and as the owner of Dallas-based World Class Championship Wrestling, Fritz (Holt McCallany) now lives vicariously through the accomplishment of the four sons he’s raised with his devoutly Christian wife Doris (Maura Tierney). He lets the boys know that they are not just competing during their matches but with one another for his favor. They are all eager to please, even the youngest, Mike (Stanley Simons), who would rather be playing music. Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) pursues Olympic glory in track and field but returns to the family fold when the United States boycotts the 1980 Moscow Olympics. For a while, the main competition is between eldest brother Kevin (Zac Efron), a talented athlete but shy and tongue-tied when promoting the sport, and his more outgoing, loquacious sibling David (Harris Dickinson), a natural at giving sound bites.
Raised to please their exacting father, the boys knuckle under to his demands at the cost of their own well-being. At least, a couple of them seek solace in drugs. David ignores health issues so as not to miss an important match. Kerry goes to insane lengths to battle back from a serious injury that anyone else would take as a sign that it’s time to retire. Mike ignores his own desires to make his dad happy. Kevin, a gifted athlete with a genuine passion for the sport, can only watch helplessly as his brothers deflate under the never-ending pressure Fritz applies to them.
This is a film with almost no light but it’s in those few moments – the siblings’ mini rebellion against parental authority when they help teenage Mike escape the home to perform with his band at a party and an energetic line dance between the brothers and Kevin’s bride Pam (Lily James) to John Denver’s Thank God I’m a Country Boy at Kevin’s wedding – hint at what might have been had Fritz just let his sons be. Following their dad into wrestling is one thing but Fritz’s demands for perfections and to only do things his way breaks down one son after the other. The irony is that The Iron Claw makes clear the phony nature of so much of professional wrestling but Fritz expects a certain kind of performance from his boys even then.
The entire ensemble is fantastic with White affecting as he portrays Kerry’s determination and downward spiral and Dickinson charismatic as the sparkplug of the family. The stand outs are Mindhunter star McCallany, displaying Fritz’s blend of steel and machismo with the love for his family percolating beneath that harsh surface, and Efron. The actor better known for his musical and comedic skills utterly transformed his body to play Kevin Von Erich and he is utterly believable as someone who gives and receives harsh physical punishment for a living. More than that, Efron finds the emotional notes in his performance that conveys his affection for his brothers, his respect for his parents, his embrace of his sport, and his growing horror at the toll that wrestling takes on the people he loves most.
Ultimately, The Iron Claw revolves around the so-called “Von Erich curse,” as one calamity after another visits the brood. The family’s real story is even bleaker than the story the movie spins, so the idea of some kind of hex is not all that far-fetched. And, yet that’s not what’s up on the screen. There is no supernatural hand at work here, only a destructive adherence to a masculine ideal that might exist in a god but never in a human. Watching the brothers unravel on screen is a haunting experience, especially with the realization that it did not have to be this way. Fritz, in setting up unbending expectations for his progeny, leaves them with little choice but to knuckle under, to their peril. With love in his heart, Fritz pushes his sons over a cliff. This is one of the best films of 2023, and one of the most devastating.
