Review: Foxcatcher

Released: 9^th January 2015

Certificate: 15

Director: Bennett Miller

Screenwriter: E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman

Cast: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller

Taking its inspiration from an astounding and strange true story, Foxcatcher tells the tale of champion wrestlers Mark and Dave Schultz (Tatum and Ruffalo), and the tragic results of their patronage by billionaire John DuPont (Steve Carell) in the late 1980s.

Despite winning a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Mark Schultz spends his days shuffling from cramped apartment to run-down training facility, struggling to make ends meet without government support. Although much has been made of Carell’s transformative performance as DuPont (more on that later), for my money Tatum is the real surprise here. Despite his immense physical stature and outward gruff stoicism, Tatum makes Mark’s inner vulnerability painfully clear. These layers of emotional tenderness bleed through in a masterful physical performance which goes beyond the sparse conversational range of the taciturn Mark. This idea of the language of the physical runs through Foxcatcher. An early scene where Mark and Dave spar is all but devoid of spoken dialogue, but the nature of the physical contact between them- flowing in and out of long-established training positions, controlled offense and one notable moment of uncontrolled aggression- fully establishes the nature of their relationship, and foreshadows the turns it will take throughout the narrative.

Despite Mark and Dave’s unspoken but unmistakeably strong bond, the appearance of John Du Pont threatens to drive a wedge between them. Du Pont, played by Carell as an almost childish figure despite his great wealth, offers his patronage to Mark, giving him a new home on his estate and a space in which he and the other world-class American wrestlers can train. Regarding the world over a beak-like prosthetic nose, Carell’s performance paints Du Pont as a man stuck between the desire to belong and the desire to control. While at times a ridiculous figure, the audience is never allowed to forget the power that Du Pont wields over Schultz by virtue of his great wealth. The effect of that wealth and that influence on Mark is well played out by Carell and Tatum, and the film hums with a sense of brooding menace, supported by Rob Simonsen’s unobtrusive score. If a criticism can be made it is that for all the simmering tension, Foxcatcher can at times be an oddly sterile affair, perhaps easier to admire than to enjoy. Although making sense of the events which took place on the Foxcatcher estate is an impossible task, the denouement here feels somewhat rushed. Although this may have been Miller’s intention in order to bring to light the fundamental senselessness of what happened, it proves an oddly unsatisfactory conclusion to a riveting tale.

Verdict: 4/5

Image credit: sonyclassics.com