New & Now: The Iron Claw

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be wrestlers.

My parents had no aspirations for me. Well, that’s not entirely true: my mother enrolled me in ballet dancing classes and cheerleading tryouts, and when I showed an aptitude for neither¹, that was it for that. I don’t think either of them ever really wanted kids, and when they did have them, they didn’t know what to do with them.

I was never given any sort of direction as to what I should do in school, or the goals I needed to make as an adult. I was entirely on my own when it came to choosing classes and electives in high school, and then the more complicated college application process, with no input from either of them as to what I should want to major in. I was pretty sure that their aspirations for me didn’t go much higher than “don’t get knocked up before you turn 18” and “don’t end up in jail.”

I occasionally still lament not having parents who took an interest in guiding me towards better things, and then I watch a movie like The Iron Claw and I realize that I was probably better off that way.

Fritz Von Erich was one of those types of parents who don’t believe that children are people with their own personalities and dreams, but rather mindless lumps of clay to be sculpted into whatever image he wanted for them. Born Jack Adkisson, Fritz (played here by Holt McCallany) took on his pseudonym as part of a heel persona as a professional wrestler, using his grandmother’s maiden name. Falling short of a championship title, Fritz projected his dreams (and bitterness over losing) onto his sons, while their mother, Doris (Maura Tierney), tempered Fritz’s heavy hand with religion.

Sons Kevin (Zac Efron), David (Harris Dickinson), and Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) are all enthusiastic about wrestling, but it’s hard to tell how much of that is their own choice, or because they emerged from the womb directly onto a wrestling mat. Youngest son Mike (Stanley Simons) would much rather play music, but what any of them really wants ranks a distant second to what Fritz wants.

As it turns out, being a relentless hard-ass on your kids, pitting them against each other for your affection and approval, and forcing them to keep competing through crippling pain because winning is the only thing that matters goddammit, does actually get results. Of course, it also means standing by and watching their bodies break down and ignoring the emotional toll it takes on them. But trust the process, it’ll all be worth it when Fritz can brag about their accomplishments like he was the one getting tossed over the ropes onto a concrete floor instead.

Even if you know nothing about wrestling (and I don’t either), you almost certainly know the real-life story of the Von Erichs by now. It’s a story of such overwhelming tragedy that if it were fictionalized people would think it was ridiculous. In fact, there was another brother, Chris, who also died, but was omitted from the film due to time constraints, as was mention of David losing a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Let me rephrase that: though the story presented in The Iron Claw is unbearably sad, the actual story is even worse.

The unanswered question posited here is can the premature deaths of every Von Erich brother except Kevin be attributed to Fritz pushing them too hard, or to a supposed curse attached to the Von Erich name? Kevin giving his newborn son his original last name Adkisson seems to suggest that he believes the latter, though it’s obvious to the audience, who sees that Fritz isn’t a father so much as a drill sergeant, that the pain and sorrow the brothers experience comes from a tangible source.

The Iron Claw is a rough watch, even if you know what happens going into it. Though they redefine the phrase “large adult sons” (Efron looks like a Jeep Wagoneer if it was given human life), the four Von Erich brothers are nice, good old-fashioned country boys. They go to church every Sunday, they love their mama and dad, and they love each other. Any normal parent would be proud to call them their sons, so it’s heartbreaking to see the disgusted glares Fritz gives them when they admit that they’re in pain, or how they shrink in his presence. Even when that precious approval is given to one brother, it’s not without withering criticism for another one, in a gross attempt to feed into their competitive natures.

If the film suffers anywhere, it’s in its pacing: though the series of tragedies that befell the Von Erichs happened over a decade, here everything feels condensed to only a year or two. If you look away for a moment, you might miss that Kerry loses his foot in a motorcycle accident, or that Mike becomes suicidal after a medical catastrophe leaves him brain damaged. It feels strangely rushed, which diminishes the story’s impact (though the impact it does leave is pretty effective, it must be said²).

Writer Dave Meltzer, a journalist specializing in professional wrestling, pointed out that The Iron Claw curiously underplays the Von Erichs’ success in the sport and their popularity with fans. Going solely by the movie, one would get the impression that they were only big³ in the Dallas, Texas area, when in fact they were prominent on the nationwide wrestling circuit, falling just short of ranking at the top of their respective organizations, earning cover stories and doing commercials for a popular regional pizza restaurant chain.

If I was writer-director Sean Durkin, I would have recreated the Pizza Inn commercial (which bafflingly offered all you can eat blueberry muffins), as an example of the strange life the Von Erichs were leading, even though they almost certainly would have preferred to be living quietly and raising babies with hometown girls and hanging out with each other on the weekends.

To be fair, though, the movie isn’t about their wrestling careers. It’s about the Von Erichs themselves, or more specifically Kevin, the sole surviving brother who comes to the agonizing realization that the only curse on their family was his father’s pathological competitive streak. It’s interesting to note that Kevin’s sons are both professional wrestlers, still using the Von Erich name. It is in their blood, apparently, with or without Fritz’s input, but presumably a gentler hand guiding them, and not making a parent’s love conditional on winning.

1. I couldn’t turn a cartwheel then, and I can’t turn a cartwheel now.

2. I accidentally typed this as “it must be sad,” and it very much is.

3. Not just figuratively, but literally: David Von Erich was a massive 6’8”, a half a foot taller than Harris Dickinson, his fictional counterpart.