TH E IRON CLAW 15

Brothers in arm bands…

★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY CINEMAS

‘Whoa! No more beans before matches, I’m begging you!’

Triumph and tragedy form an inseparable tag team in writer/director Sean Durkin’s emotional chronicle of the Von Erich clan, a close-knit family of sibling wrestlers whose rise to prominence in 1980s Texas was accompanied by a remorseless, almost Shakespearean succession of setbacks.

Giving their sport a level of respect not often granted, the film calculates the cost the boys paid trying to live up to their father-slash-coach’s exacting standards – a price that made each of them genuinely fear that their surname came with a curse. Named for a head-gripping palm move that patriarch Fritz (Holt McCallany) made his signature during his time in the ring, The Iron Claw is upfront from the start about wrestling’s choreographed fakery. Yet it also gives its practitioners their due by showing both the arduous training required to mould their muscular physiques, and the risk of serious injury they face even when partaking in pre-scripted theatrics.

The most startling transformation here is Zac Efron’s, the High School Musical heart-throb resembling Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk as the ambitious, if somewhat charisma-light, Kevin. Yet Durkin’s saga is very much an ensemble effort that ensures all of the brothers – blond-haired trash-talker David (Harris Dickinson), thwarted Olympian discus-chucker Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) and amiable wannabe musician Mike (Stanley Simons) – get their moment to shine.

That each fleeting snapshot of glory comes with a cruelly inexplicable postscript gives Durkin’s follow-up to 2020’s The Nest a chilling fatalism. (Not for nothing does Kevin insist that the son he has with Lily James’ veterinarian, Pam, has his mother’s maiden name on his birth certificate.)

DIRECTOR Sean Durkin STARRING Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Maura Tierney, Lily James SCREENPLAY Sean Durkin DISTRIBUTOR Lionsgate RUNNING TIME 132 mins

At the same time, though, the film embraces the camp world the boys operate in, with its baying audiences, pantomime villains and lurid Spandex outfits. DoP Mátyás Erdély brings his camera in tight during the bodyslamming action, so much so that you can almost smell the baby oil. Yet he is capable of great lyricism, too: an idyllic scene of the brothers spending a lazy day on the river pays off later on with a reunion that’s as poignant as it is unexpected.

Efron may be top-billed, but there is equally fine work from McCallany as the fam’s tyrannical taskmaster and Maura Tierney as the withholding mother behind him. Only James feels a little out of place, her vivacity striking a discordant note in a story so permeated with misfortune.

THE VERDICT Sensitive rather than sensationalist, this is an engrossing grapple with a wrestling dynasty that was blessed with pecs appeal yet dogged by bad luck.

THE BEEKEEPER 15

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS

Director David Ayer (End of Watch, Fury, Suicide Squad) here tries his hand at an 80s-throwback action thriller. The requisite hard-nut star is Jason Statham, whose tranquil beekeeper, Adam Clay, of course has a shadowy past and a particular set of skills that are once more called into action. It’s routine stuff, though what starts off as a roaring rampage of personal revenge grows in scope to assume national stakes. Meanwhile, the climactic fight dishes real pain - an analogue treat after The Stath’s cartoonish smackdowns in the Fast & Furious franchise. Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Jeremy Irons and Minnie Driver also star.

YOUR FAT FRIEND 15

★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY CINEMAS

Sifting delicately through US fat-acceptance activist Aubrey Gordon’s awkward family life, this doco traces her six-year rise from anonymous blogger to bestselling author. Director Jeanie Finlay’s gentle style nimbly captures Gordon’s growing confidence, but also the terrifying torrent of online threats menacing her. Sparky and wry about the stigmatisation of certain body types, Gordon makes eloquent and thought-provoking pleas for an end to fat-phobic culture. It feels like a missed opportunity not to engage more with health issues related to the subject matter, but this remains a sympathetic, if slow-moving, portrait.

SHOSHANA TBC

★★★★★ OUT 16 FEBRUARY CINEMAS

The complicated origins of the Israel-Palestine conflict are effectively if stodgily recounted in Michael Winterbottom’s (This England, A Mighty Heart) 30s-based thriller. Set in Tel Aviv at a time when the area was under British colonial rule, it’s a modestly involving tale of two officials (Douglas Booth, Harry Melling) whose attempts to root out terrorists only exacerbate tensions. Caught in the middle is Booth’s Jewish girlfriend, Shoshana (Irina Starshenbaum), a peculiarly marginal presence in a film that steadily distils political complexities into a violent series of Godfatherstyle, tit-for-tat killings.

SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER, SOMEONE’S SON TBC

★★★★★ OUT 16 FEBRUARY CINEMAS

Exploring homelessness in the UK, this documentary by Lorna Tucker (2018’s Westwood) is part autobiography, part call for social action. Tucker herself was on the streets as a teenager, and her story – as well as many others here – paints an empathetic picture of the human cost of falling through the cracks. There are contributions from those working in the sector - including John Bird, co-founder of The Big Issue - and though it’s not always clear what the solution is, the appeal to our shared humanity is deeply moving.