THE IRON CLAW
(15) 132mins
★★★★★
IN some movie make-overs, you simply can’t believe anyone would be that devoted to a role.
Christian Bale becoming emaciated for The Machinist.
Or former model Charlize Theron morphing into serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
Now, Zac Efron has done similar by beefing up so much, to play US wrestling legend Kevin Von Erich, it’s hard to fathom he’s not in a prosthetic suit.
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This biopic is about wrestling’s most famous family, from Texas, at the height of their success in the Eighties.
Masterminded by embittered, God-fearing dad Fritz (Holt McCallany), Kevin and his three brothers are both grapplers and athletes thanks to their father’s strict training regime.
Tragic events
They are the rock stars of their sport, known across the world.
Kevin is the poster boy but there’s also the showman David (Harris Dickinson), the Olympic hopeful Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) — and the youngest and more sensitive, musician Mike (Stanley Simons).
Their camaraderie is exceptional, you feel as if you are peeping through the curtains of a family home.
The film’s dialogue can often be sparse but the masterful choreography of the brothers’ actions gives a feeling of stoic calm in each other’s presence.
Odd, then, that the Von Erich family are meant to be cursed — something that, when we meet them, has already taken Fritz’s first-born son from him.
A succession of tragic events hit the family, amid their huge success.
And long-suffering Kevin takes it all on, with a stunning performance by Efron that is both exhilarating and heart-wrenching.
Kevin is a man of few words — who has done little but train, and try to please his dad.
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And Efron portrays this immaculately.
While the wrestling scenes are filmed to perfection and totally capture the 1980s, they are not overdone.
They are fast, fierce and fascinating without, well, showing off.
The film shows the self-destructive nature of the sport and how this takes its toll physically and mentally.
Kevin has his private life grounded by his love for girlfriend Pam (Lily James), while the other brothers have little but competition and the suffocating pressure from their father.
Writer and director Sean Durkin brings to life this little-known tragic story with care and class — it’s a knockout.
YOUR FAT FRIEND
(15) 96mins
★★☆☆☆
THE f-word is one we’re not usually encouraged to say nowadays, but Aubrey Gordon insists on it.
She is fat.
And she has been fat since she was a child, as this documentary shows.
The author originally reached fame as an anonymous blogger, Your Fat Friend, in 2015 and was one of the first voices of “fat acceptance”.
She highlights the struggles fat people face daily and how they clearly disgust most of society.
After five years of blogging, she showed her face and wrote two bestselling books.
This film follows Aubrey writing and publishing her first, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat.
While her intentions clearly come from a good place as she battles to change attitudes towards the overweight, it feels flimsy pushing the idea that empathy alone can help the health crisis America – and the UK – is now in.
Obesity is at an all-time high and Aubrey claims that the overweight can be just as fit and healthy, without presenting any facts to prove it.
I appreciate her frustrations, but an entire film centred on them becomes a bit stale.
OCCUPIED CITY
(12A) 262mins
★★☆☆☆
DIRECTOR Steve McQueen makes his feature documentary debut with this adaptation of wife Bianca Stigter’s Second World War history book Atlas Of An Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945.
Shot during the pandemic, the film bridges the gap between then and now by presenting contemporary Amsterdam and explaining both the horrors and heroics that occurred when the Nazis took over the city.
From Jewish resistance fighters and Christian neighbours hiding Jews, to SS rallies and chilling mass executions, many a story is told in this film.
At almost four-and-a-half hours it might be long but the time it gives to each tale is actually rather short, leaving a sense of wanting to know far more.
The editing of voiceover and visuals does provide some connection between past and present – at one point the narrator mentions the issue of bread prices and rations as pigeons can be seen eating an old loaf.
But it veers into monotony as the mundane shots don’t deliver the potency of the tales being told.
Worthy but too tedious to overwhelm your emotions.
Hanna Flint
