The tragicomic spectacle of American wrestling, with all its poignant pantomime machismo and showbiz fury, is the subject of Sean Durkin’s deeply sad, odd true-life drama based on the case of the Von Erich family – like the Von Trapp family, only with a ’roid rage death wish.
The Von Erichs were a professional wrestling dynasty from Texas in the 1980s; giant boys in wrestling boots and trunks and their taskmaster patriarch-manager. The old man was embittered and fanatically energised on his sons’ behalf in time-honoured fashion by his own failure to win glory as a young contender. As a result of his brutally dysfunctional parenting and toxic masculinity, the Von Erichs were plagued by a succession of heartbreaking calamities. Maybe this film will come to be shown as a double bill with Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, although the ordeal here is broadly factual.
