Sunday, April 14, 2024

The Iron Claw (2023)

IMDb plot summary: The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s.
Directed by Sean Durkin. Starring Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, and Harris Dickinson.

The Iron Claw is a biopic about the Von Erich brothers, a family of wrestlers who undergo a series of tragedies trying to make their way to the top. This was an interesting take on the biopic because it didn't necessarily follow the same tropes of "little guy makes it big, starts doing drugs, spirals, etc" that so many of these follow. The brothers stay close and try to support each other, and so many of the things that go wrong are freak accidents. This makes it all the more tragic, because you get the sense that they could have found a way to navigate their own unhealthy relationship with their father if the additional traumas weren't exacerbating everything. Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White are both especially great in this, portraying deeply relatable characters who are just doing what they can and finding it all to be too overwhelming. It's a difficult movie, and it's hard to know if there's anything really to take away from it, but it does paint a powerful picture of brotherhood. (Efron's final scene with his children and White's final scene with his brothers were both beautifully done.) More interesting than your typical biopic.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Iron Claw > Selma
The Iron Claw < Dark Passage
The Iron Claw > Hustle
The Iron Claw < Waking Ned Devine
The Iron Claw < Moonstruck
The Iron Claw < Into the Wild
The Iron Claw > Bottle Rocket
The Iron Claw > The United States vs. Billie Holiday
The Iron Claw < The Killing of a Sacred Deer
The Iron Claw < Flora and Son
The Iron Claw < Lady Bird
The Iron Claw > Ping Pong Playa
Final spot: #1411 out of 3887, or 64%.

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