The Iron Claw

The 2023 A24 biographical sports drama, The Iron Claw, had all the makings of a huge awards contender, but sadly released outside of the window required to get nominations. Being inspired by the true story of the Von Enrich family and their rises and falls within the space of wresting (which included several tragic deaths), the film may not have had the strongest hold at the box office with its limited theatrical release, but those that saw it agreed it was one of the best movies of the year, with painfully effective performances, tight visuals, harrowing direction and a very effective screenplay. While it didn’t get the recognition it deserved, it garnered enough recognition to be praised for its merits.

In 1979 Texas, former wrestler Jack Von Enrich (played by Holt McCallany) is pressuring his four sons to continue on his legacy by competing in the World Class Championship Wrestling (which he owns) and earn the title of World Heavyweight Champion. While the oldest, Kevin (played by Zac Efron) has recently seen success in the ring, he seems to get little attention from his father against his other brothers; David (played by Harry Dickinson), whose average in the ring but great on the microphone, Kerry (played by Jeremy Allen White), who was placed in the ring after his Olympic dreams were cut short, and youngest brother, Mike (played by Stanley Simons) who has no interest in wresting and wishes to be a musician but is unable to due to his father’s searing disapproval. Although the brothers manage to become a solid team and eventually climb the ranks, their personal lives are affected as a result of the monstrous pressure placed on them, and tragedy slowly starts to build up. With Kevin having only his wife, Pam (played by Lily James) to depend on, as his father and mother, Doris (played by Maura Tierney) only care about the end results, Kevin needs to be the one to look out for his brothers because it may reach a point where they start to lose themselves past the point of no return.

The Iron Claw is a brutally sad portrayal of the unfortunate degradation of a very iconic family in the wresting space, and is executed in a close to perfect manner, with top notch directing, visuals, acting and atmosphere.

Although the Von Enrich family would’ve been known to those that know wrestling, they wouldn’t have been to those outside of the space, and with a family history that feels prime for a movie, The Iron Claw does its duty as a sports film with the familiar tropes of wanting to overcoming the odds and reach the top, but twists what could easily be a feel-good experience by enveloping it in this harsh and bleak realism that adds a new layer to it, and creates a situation that still feels cinematic, but never phony. The film is uncomfortably real in many parts, portrays this tragedy in a very tasteful and engaging manner, and while it can be a little rough to get through due to how unrelenting it can be, it always feels purposeful which comes through really solid scripting and direction. Sean Durkin had only made a few films prior to this feature, but it feels like this one will greatly propel his career, directing this movie with just enough zing and aggressive personality to keep it lively, while never veering too far into overly saturated territories to take people out of the experience.

It really includes the wrestling personality in a way that is nothing short of brilliant, using this overly-macho, hype-inducing, roast-esque energy in a way that at first feels like overtly staged dramatics, but once the film (and by extension the audience and the lead) experience great tragedy, it suddenly feels personal and like a call-out that yanks at your deeply-rooted pain.  It’s a picture that expects its characters to be pushed to the limit but never allowed to break (unless it’s past the point of healing) and the whole movie encompasses this passionate, but overbearing atmosphere that really displays the wrestling spirit, but also the frightening reality that comes underneath this staged sport. While the script truncates the true story to an effective manner and the film is very well paced, the only real problem is that it can often jump forward in time past something that probably deserved more time to stew. While it does allow the sad moments to leave an effect, there is some skirting around actual events that probably would’ve helped the film out even more, but it already squeezed so much into a two-hour running time pretty nicely, so it’s not really a large complaint.

While the handling of the story and its direction are big components to why this film was successful, it wouldn’t have mattered unless they nailed the portrayals of the Von Enrich brothers. With that relationship being the heart and soul of this movie, their bond is the driving force behind the conflict in and out of the ring, and you feel that connection present all throughout. The acting from pretty much everybody has a sense of weary strength to it that feels common for this sport, like their entire being is exhausted after a match and although they might be happy on the outside, they can’t get rid of the pressure placed on them even once it’s done. Each of the brothers is very well acted and even though Kevin is the lead and the remaining three don’t get a ton of insight, you get enough to know what they’re going through, what drives them and why each has a strength and a weakness in regard to wrestling. David is average at the sport, but knows how to hype up the crowd, Mike can fake the theatrics , but is clearly not fit for this world, Kerry could thrive in the space, but his extreme party-crazy and unhealthy self-destructive tendencies result in going overboard, and while Kevin is clearly the best athlete and most credible wrestler, he has no persona to latch onto and therefore shines the least.

Zac Efron was given a lot of attention for his role as Kevin, and while it’s hard to say it’s a game-changing performance that’ll make people look at him differently, it’s easily the best acting he’s shown in his whole career. Always feeling authentic, never coming across as too exaggerated or showy, being very sympathetic and likeable despite arguably being the least complex, and never feeling like his past teen heart-throb persona gets in the way of what he’s doing now, it’s very impressive work on his part and shows promise for what he could do in the future. Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson and Stanley Simons are very good as the brothers, Holt McCallany does a great job as the role of the father, taking what has often times been showcased as a one-note cinematic villain and making him feel uncomfortably real and someone you buy could manipulate his kids with phony words of grandeur. He’s a pretty effective antagonist, which can also be said for Maura Tierney as the mother, who is less overtly toxic than the father, but is equally instrumental in her children’s downfall. Lily James is fine as Kevin’s love interest, but a little too generic to be memorable (she’s played this role in pretty much every movie she’s been in) and while the rest of the supporting cast do well enough, none of them outside of Aaron Deen Eisenberg as Rick Flair, are that memorable.

The film’s visuals feel like they could be pretty perfunctory given the kind of story being portrayed but since it’s under the distribution banner of A24 (who often have a very cinematic and almost eerily clean manner of portraying their visuals), this movie was going to be nice looking, but how it goes about it is deceptively brilliant. The two sides of how this film is visualized convey a sense of perfection, but also a sense of imperfection at the same time, like it’s great looking on the surface, but upon closer inspection, the truth becomes clear. The country home the family lives on is picturesque, gorgeously rural, and the environment is bustling with natural lighting and colors, but it’s also deathly quiet with only the sounds of nature to accompany various horrible situations. In the wrestling space, the ring is blared with a harsh yellow lighting with the audience being blacked out, and the locker rooms are soaked in a dark blue lighting that makes things feel strongly downtrodden, saturating the space in a way that makes every emotion feel heightened.

The camera work by Mátyás Erdély is expertly crafted without going over-the-top, instead creating a sense of mood through every close-up, medium shots, and far-off angles. These shots manage to capture the intense intimacy but also the detached spectacle of the sport, and this can also be said for the home environment as well, where the close ups feel genuine and raw, but the far-off shots are like watching a bygone legend play out, like being a nameless face on the side of this tale and you have to witness a tragedy with no way of preventing it. It is shockingly well executed and really deserves a lot of credit.  While the actual musical score by Richard Redd Parry is perfectly fine and works during the more emotional moments, it’s not a sound that is particularly memorable, which is contrasted nicely with a great soundtrack that really does a good job hyping up moments with familiar tunes that establishes the time period as well as just function as hummable tunes.

The Iron Claw may not have gotten any love at the award spaces, but it got a lot from critics and audiences, who saw a film that took a serious tragedy and portrayed it in a way that was not only respectful to the family in question and captured the bumpy and rough exterior some of them had, but did so in a cinematically appealing way that doesn’t just feel like you’re stuck in a miserable place for a feature-length time frame. There are maybe a few things that could’ve been ironed out from a pacing and scripting level, like including a few things that were left out (including another brother awkwardly), but outside of that, this film has fantastic acting, directing and visuals that make it a sweaty and all-showing film without being too in-your-face ironically. Definitely a sad watch, but one you’ll be happy to cry through.