In The Iron Claw, Zac Efron does Greek tragedy in spandex

A24 drama by Sean Durkin The Iron Clawbased on the true story of A legendary family of professional wrestlers, revives a great American Christmas tradition: open presents under the tree, eat a decadent meal, and then drive the whole family to the local movie theater to watch a new prestige seasonal release that turns out to be the most depressing movie of the year. PSA for those planning their vacation with the whole family: The Iron Claw is not the overcoming-the-odds sports movie the trailers would have you believe.

Set in Texas in the 1980s, The Iron Claw tells the infamous story of the Von Erichs, who did just that one of the most disturbing Wikipedia articles you will read it someday. Durkin, who wrote and directed, adapts their lives as a Greek tragedy in spandex, complete with a domineering patriarch and his sons, a clan of would-be champions with a death wish.

Kevin Von Erich (Zac Efron) is an up-and-coming professional wrestler with the looks for Playgirl magazine and the amateur acting chops of a two-by-four, holding him back in a profession that's quickly moving from smoky beer halls to national television. As the eldest living son in the Von Erich family, Kevin plays the protector of his younger siblings: the charming and theatrical David (Harris Dickinson), the future Olympian Kerry (The bear's Jeremy Allen White), and the youngest, Mike (Stanley Simons), who would rather strum folk music than be bullied in the ring.

Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany) is their father and the engineer of their tragedies. Fritz, a former wrestler himself, throws his boys into the ring one by one, trying to make them what he was never talented enough for: the world champion.

McCallany gives a sharp performance. He is threatening, often verbally, sometimes physically. He is also funny and affectionate, an enthusiastic mentor. Spending time with the Von Erichs isn't like a horror movie where you scream, “Just get out of the house!” It makes emotional sense if the kids, now grown, still argue over breakfast at the family kitchen table, or vent to their mother Doris, played by Maura Tierney with a chilling “Don't involve me in your mess.” father'. The children sense early on that their pursuit of the championship title will be their downfall, but they cannot break away from the camaraderie within the family. They wouldn't if they could. The Iron Claw performs the same trick on the audience, which is perhaps the best acrobatic maneuver.

The film is not a whole box of Kleenex junk from start to finish. It's a lot of fun at first. Because in a leap outside the metaphorical ropes of filmmaking, The Iron Claw also revives the other great American Christmas tradition: awkwardly watching a movie with your family and discovering that it's full of extremely beautiful people wearing minimal clothing, if any.

It's understandably awkward to talk about actors' bodies in theaters these days, but the topic is inescapable in a movie about pro wrestling, a form of entertainment where blood and exposed breasts are the two main selling points. Durkin gets it. Like a great pro wrestling booker, he keeps his audience in his grip until the last match, seducing them with soapy melodrama, deadly brawls and plenty of greased steak.

The opening image changes gender Lost in translation'S infamous ass shot – this time we get Zac Efron in tight whites. It's a tone setter. Durkin dedicates all the men who pass the camera with gauzy lenses, soft light and enough oil to spin a Bucca di Beppo. Take for example Jeremy Allen White, whose sex appeal is catching on The bear countless sold plain white luxury T-shirts. This time there is no shirt to sell.

As these men climb the professional wrestling ranks, Durkin gives them plenty of room to feel like charming brothers, sneaking into parties and sharing tag team matches on TV. Combined with all their raucous performances, there's a playlist of '70s and '80s rock anthems that keep the film teetering on the edge of period parody, including a scene where a teenage Mike discovers the transcendent power of music by hearing Rush's 'Tom Sawyer'. .”

It would be easy for the “just guys being guys” energy to veer into movie of the week territory, but Durkin has collaborated with brilliant artists who understand how to walk the high wire on which he has built his film strung. This also applies to his leading man. Now awards when the Golden Globes already look silly looking forward The Iron Claw's performancesI'd be remiss not to briefly spotlight the true champion of this ring: Efron conjures magic here, taking a character with few things to say and the vocabulary of a children's book, and giving him the comforting glow of a nightlight.

There are actually two love stories in this movie, and Efron carries both: the love between Kevin and his brothers, and the romance between Kevin and Pam (Lily James). The latter doesn't have much time to blossom on screen, and yet a dinner conversation between James and Efron has more spark than most contemporary love stories. You understand why on earth a woman would marry into a family with living, alarming warnings.

The aesthetic credit must also be shared. The film's cinematographer, Mátyás Erdély, is best known for Son of Saul, a “You only have to see it once” drama about a prisoner in Auschwitz who is forced to clear and clean the gas chambers. In that film, Erdély holds the camera close, as if he were making a portrait. The faces of the living are in focus and the surroundings are blurred, as if everything else is too disturbing to process. Erdély and Durkin apply a similar approach The Iron Claw. Kevin's entire world is his family, and everything else is landscape. Wrestling matches are framed like neoclassical paintings, with the sculpted performers' bodies standing in powerful silhouette while the crowd disappears into pitch-black shadow.

Anyone who knows wrestling history (or prestigious biopics) knows where this is all going. Erdély's lush nature photography shifts into more pensive shots of sunburned Texas fields and close-ups of bruised bodies, until the midpoint, when the film folds in half, with joy on the front and a gauntlet of injury and death on the back.

Not included in the film's long list of real-life tragedies: Chris Von Erich, the youngest brother of the real-life Von Erich family. Asthmatic and prone to injuries, Chris struggled to enter the pro wrestling circuit before committing suicide in 1991. He was 21. His lack of participation in The Iron Claw feels less like erasure than an act of mercy for the audience – and perhaps for the family.

Side B of The Iron Claw plays like a greatest hits survey of biopic tragedies, including neglectful parents, dissolved marriages, drug abuse, disfiguring accidents and a young life cut short. But time and time again, Durkin and his associates decide to soften what became of the Von Erich brothers and their families, removing spouses and children and the horror that befell them.

The biopicification of such a terrible, personal series of tragedies may sound crude to some. But Durkin doesn't water down the Von Erich story into straight-to-cable fluff. He performs a balancing act, aware that a sad story is only useful if people have the desire (and determination) to stay until the credits.

So it's fitting that Durkin embraces the methods that pro wrestling in general and the Von Erichs in particular used to combine the profound and the profane. One moment we look fragmented Rick Flair create a high-octane promo. The next day we are at a funeral. This emotional whiplash is true to the experience of loving pro wrestling, both in the 1980s and, unfortunately, still today. Pro wrestling can feature lovable, iconic celebrities like The Rock, John Cena and Stone Cold Steve Austin. And it can also produce unbearable tragedies, like the fates of Chris Benoit, Owen Hart and the Von Erichs.

In The Iron Claw, the divide between the living and the dead doesn't seem so far away. And the gap between the tearful and the joyful is even smaller. Through Durkin's eyes, longtime fans and newcomers alike can see the paradoxical reality of professional wrestling: entertainment that is both theater and sport, fake and real, and too often safer in the ring than outside of it.

The Iron Claw debuts in theaters on December 22.