Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

Spoiler Alert! The Von Erich family had a total of six children, and five of them died in a variety of tragic ways. In The Iron Claw, the new film by writer-director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene), “inspired by” this family’s story, it sticks to the truth of the eldest child having died as a little boy, one of the elder brothers is written out, reportedly because of the expectation that it would be too much for audiences. Well, here’s my take: more than deaths happen to this family, so many awful things, I honestly don’t see how it would have made any real difference. After the other deaths, illnesses, comas, and dismemberments, The Iron Claw already had me pretty desensitized to the plight of this family.

This is a well-executed film that struggles to justify its own existence. I suppose it is indeed a darkly fascinating story, but I’m kind of at a loss as to why we needed a movie about it. It’s less a story of perseverance or overcoming adversity than it is a tale of one family member who happened to avoid the tragic fates of nearly all the others.

There’s so much tragedy, in fact, that The Iron Claw didn’t even manage to be the tearjerker I fully expected it to be. I took five tissues into the theater with me, expecting to be bawling by the end. But there’s no time for grieving when you’re just enduring the shock of one tragic accident or suicide after the next. Which, I suppose, must have been the Von Erich’s experience, except they didn’t experience it as a simple, 130-minute narrative.

If there is anything to truly recommend The Iron Claw, it’s the performances. Zac Efron plays the son and brother around which the narrative revolves, for fairly predictable reasons. Now almost unrecognizable after reconstructive surgery to his jaw after his own real-life tragic accident, the part of Kevin Von Erich showcases his talents like nothing ever before. Jeremy Allen White both bulks up and disappears into his role as brother Kerry. Arguably most impressive of all is Harris Dickinson as brother David. Dickinson’s performance here isn’t especially showy, but if you’re one of the few people who have also seen him in both Beach Rats (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022), making these a trio of wildly different characters, each of them equally convincing, you’ll discover that this is a young man with an astonishing talent. Even if he never graduates to leading-man status, he’s got a great future ahead of him as a character actor.

The fourth older brother, Mike, is played by Stanley Simons, who holds his own onscreen with all of these other actors, as do both Holt McCallany as their dangerously obstinate father, Fritz; and Maura Tierney as their steely mother, Doris.

There’s a fair number of artistic choices in the telling of this family’s story, which range from fascinating to mystifying. This is clearly the basis for The Iron Claw being “inspired by” rather than “based on” a true story. A narrative thread in the film has to do with Von Erich being a last name used professionally by the family, though it’s not their given name—Sean Durkin opts, perhaps sensibly, not to get into the fact that in real life, the name stemmed from Fritz’s early-career wrestling days as a Nazi villain character. The name gets contextualized in the so-called “Von Erich curse,” but the whole Nazi thing is never mentioned. Presumably a lot of problematic (at best) character representations occurred in 1980s professional wrestling, but the only taste we get of it here is a brief glimpse of a villain character dressed as an Arab.

Incidentally, the most mystifying part to me was the depiction of professional wrestling in this film. Durkin spends no time whatsoever educating us on how much of it is contrived, a pre-written narrative, and how much is real (Darren Aronofsky’s far superior The Wrestler made it clear that the stories were made up, but the strain on the body was real). Fritz pressures his sons, different ones at different times depending on how pleased he is with them, to fight for wrestling titles, as though a lot of the outcomes were left up to chance. And yet, a couple of scenes have the brothers discussing planned moves before entering the ring, or in one case, a surprisingly chipper opponent who just got really beat up in the ring telling Kevin “I’ll do a rematch any time” in the same breath as he invites him out for a drink. All of this left me confused.

I was mostly okay letting that go, though, because the point of the story here is the so-called “Von Erich curse,” and in particular Kevin’s fear of it. He’s the only one of the brothers to get married, his wife (Lily James) increasingly frustrated with him because of it. The family drama at play here is far more compelling than anything that happens inside a wrestling ring, notwithstanding the relevance of Fritz pushing all of his sons too hard. Most of The Iron Claw—the title itself referring to a strange Von Erich move in which they supposedly painfully grab the face and head of their opponent—plays like any decently constructed family drama, minus the more typical moment of triumph. I just left the theater feeling a bit uncertain as to why I needed to see it.

*A parade of tragedy, in and out of the ring.*

Overall: B