From its first frame to its last, Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw reverberates with a tangible undercurrent of sadness—an undercurrent that vitally remains even in the most testosterone-driven of bouts in the squared circle. It’s the year’s most honest film, deeply sincere in its characters, melancholy, and, above all, humanity, as it navigates both the burden and beauty of familial expectations. Centering on the real-life story of the Von Erich Family Wrestling Dynasty, Durkin immerses us in the milieu of the 80s pro wrestling boom with grace and subtlety, capturing its glamour and gravity in the most heartbreaking and heartwarming of ways.
In Durkin’s account of the inseparable Von Erich Brothers, tragedy and triumph become equally as inextricable, a quality their domineering father, Fritz (A formidable Holt McCallany), singlehandedly conjures. “The rankings can always change,” he tells his sons of his varying affection for them. The only way to rise through the ranks is to be good enough for a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship, something Kevin (Zac Efron) and his showman brother David (Harris Dickinson) dedicate their lives to. Yet, it’s not long before Fritz renders one brother’s success the other’s failure, trapping them in a pressure cooker of unchecked pride, envy, and self-harm—a space where victories are never able to be savoured. It’s a dynamic that’s intensified by the arrival of Fritz’s favourite son, Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), an Olympic hopeful whose dream is crushed by the Carter administration’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games.
Despite all the rivalry embedded in their relationship, the brothers’ love for each other holds true, despite glory only gracing one of them at a time. It’s a multi-faceted love Durkin illuminates with the tenderest and natural of touches, earning each embrace, quiet heart-to-heart, and harrowing argument with a deceptively reserved lens.
Just as the family finds itself on the highest peak of success, the “Von Erich Curse” begins to rear its head, shrouding the brothers in a cloud of unimaginable loss. It’s a toll that lies the heaviest on Kevin, as he not only lives to bear the brunt of the misfortune, but fears he’ll pass it on to his wife, Pam (Lilly James), and their children, so long as they bear his name.
Though The Iron Claw is bound to be branded as a wrestling movie, it supersedes that label at every turn, manifesting as a prestige drama that has more to do with the toxic patterns of familial trauma than the daredevil exploits of highflying brawlers. Durkin is more interested in illuminating how paternal influence and pressure can become a son’s ultimate undoing, where substance abuse and self-destruction become the only reprieve. His deliberate, cascading camera captures life lived on someone else’s terms, bringing us painfully close to every speck of sweat, swollen eye, and trail of blood that mars each brother as they enter the ring. There’s a noticeable bite and impact to wrestling scenes that are hard to shake, walloping us with grandeur in one turn and pinning us with great pathos the next.
Along with director of photography Mátyás Erdély, Durkin crafts compositions that linger on each brother, slowly closing in on their weathered bodies and faces, forcing us to marinate in their pain, grief, and quiet victory, as they continue to punish their broken bodies for a dream forced upon them. These moments are often unbroken, with Durkin switching through subjects on the fly, marrying the external conflicts of one character with the internal battles of another. It’s purposeful filmmaking that allows earned emotion and mood to take center stage, drawing a visual, thematic line between each Von Erich that refuses to be severed.
The Iron Claw is also a poignantly edited experience, making great use of unhurried dissolves that cast each brother against a lush, gentle, and ironically paradisaic Texas countryside. A terrain that is almost heaven-like in its verdancy and insulating in its sorrow—offering as much as it takes away.
The Iron Claw wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without its stellar ensemble, which is arguably the year’s best. Efron turns in the greatest performance of his career, as a man who’s not only outshined by his brothers but forced to undergo a greater indignity in helplessly watching them destroy themselves. It’s a tragic role that Efron imbues with a nuance rarely found across his career, perfectly capturing Kevin’s inner turmoil, as he’s caught between his father’s wishes, his brothers’ worsening conditions, and his wife’s needs. We find Efron at his most relatable here, making us wipe away the tears in a pivotal late scene where he realizes he’s no longer a brother.
Jeremy Allen White continues the strong work he started in The Bear, epitomizing a deeply conflicted and troubled character with just his weathered visage. Though he’s playing yet another character with an unstable family dynamic, he finds a register that’s both explosive and restrained, as if constantly seething with regret, unable to quell the tide that will surely drown him. Yet, it’s possibly Dickinson who’s the strongest member of the cast, rendering David the embodiment of a son who, despite knowing his father’s dream will kill him, jumps into the fire regardless. There’s a real interiority to the ensemble that allows each member to elevate one another.
Newcomer Stanley Simons also holds his own as Mike, the youngest of the Von Erich Clan, who is forced to give up his dream of music to follow in his brothers’ footsteps— to grave results. While Lilly James frees Pam from the supportive wife trope, by allowing her sweet, caring sensibilities to foster a character that holds her spouse accountable for the distance he is creating between them.
The Iron Claw leaves us with an ethereal, moving vision of the sweet hereafter that would have been over-saccharine in any other film, but in Durkin’s hands is heartfelt and genuine. It’s a testament to a film that in its utter heartbreak and calamity, reminds us to cherish the bonds that truly matter. An essential entry in the canon of American tragedies.
