The Iron Claw and The Boys in the Boat

 

Sean Durkin's The Iron Claw and George Clooney's Boys in the Boat offer audiences different takes on androcentrism (male-centered culture) with one (Claw) depicting the destructiveness of toxic masculinity dressed up like filial bonding and the other (Boys) espousing the productive nature of circumstantial fraternity. Both are insightful and engaging pictures.

Durkin's Iron Claw is based on the lives of real-world professional wrestlers the Von Erich brothers of the '70s, who shared an enviable familial attachment to one another and to their father. The brothers are played by Zac Efron (The Greatest Showman), Jeremy Allen White (The Bear), Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) and Stanley Simons. Efron's Kevin is father Fritz's (Holt McCallany) second favorite after Dickinson's David, followed by White's Kerry (an Olympic-hopeful discus thrower) and Simon's non-wrestler Michael.

This is important because Fritz makes it clear to his boys they win his favor and improve their rankings, which they all desperately want, by working hard to give him what he wants. He's the center of a household in which deeply religious mother Doris (Maura Tierney) plays a decidedly supportive role, fearing to interfere or intervene on behalf of her sons as it relates to their father and his demands.

Durkin's story makes it clear the Von Erich brothers love one another and their parents, after a fashion, but they have been groomed to fulfill their father's frustrated dream of winning a world championship in the heavily scripted televised competitions where image and fan-base wins over talent. The falseness and destructiveness of Fritz's enterprise parallels the chaos and heartbreak they foster in his sons, who seem to have no close associates other than themselves, no desires except what their father has given them. A series of tragic events, beginning with the death of the fifth Von Erich son when he was just a boy, has convinced Fritz the family is cursed, but his sons can defeat it.

Kevin eventually meets Pam (the ever-luminous Lily James) but he lacks dating experience and is uncomfortable outside of the family enclave. Pam eventually frees him, they marry, begin a family, and Kevin slowly loses his edge as a wrestler. This leaves him conflicted and resentful.

As Kevin's star descends, David and Kerry's rise with the aid of drugs, and they eventually become casualties. In fact, the whole family is decimated by the quest.

The opposite of narratives of destructive bonding are stories about the creative potential of brotherhood in the form of team competition. Clooney uses the true story of an underdog University of Washington rowing team defying the odds to compete in the '36 Olympics in Berlin to celebrate the forging of nine individuals into one performing unit.

Joel Edgerton (a personal favorite) stars as Coach Al Ulbrickson, who hopes to mold a junior squad of newbie rowers into shape against better funded and legacy teams in California and on the East Coast. Among the newbies is Joe Rantz, a struggling student living in a migrants' camp, who tries out for the team to get money to continue his studies.

Joe draws the attention of classmate Joyce (Hadley Robinson), who is curious about the quiet boy with the serious face, and their relationship offers counterpoint to the toil of training.

Clooney is a Hollywood traditionalist with a penchant for character-driven stories, but Boys is most riveting as it recreates the bracing action during rowing meets. He puts a lot of emotional weight in Joe's adventure, the blossoming of the introverted oarsman Don (Jack Mulhern) and the brash coxswain Bobby Moch (Luke Slattery) and it's for them we root. But it's in the racing set pieces that Clooney show his razor-sharp eye for telling detail and the thrill of winning because of singularity of purpose.

Such a needed message these days.