United States | 17 January 2015 | Directed by Bennett Miller | Starring: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller
When visiting the cinema, I am a firm believer that one should enter knowing as little as possible about the film they are going to see. I rely on a few ratings from reliable sources, avoid the increasingly lengthy, spoiler-filled trailers of the modern day and try and watch the film before the rest of the world. Therefore, I went into Foxcatcher with the basic knowledge that it was a film about Olympic wrestling and judging by the posters, starred Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo and a 60-year-old newcomer. I was, however, more prepared than a friend of mine, who thought it was a movie about the WWE. Surprisingly, this level of ignorance is highly recommended when watching Foxcatcher, as any detailed knowledge of the true story it is based on will completely ruin the shock factor and perpetual tension this film thrives on. That doesn’t mean you should stop reading, it just means don’t look up the character’s life histories on Wikipedia. This review will be as ambiguous as the film itself.
Foxcatcher tells the autobiographical tale of the US pro-wrestlers Mark and Dave Schultz, who were both World and Olympic Champions during the 80’s, and it turns out that the old newcomer was actually The 40-Year-Old Virgin himself, Steve Carell (8 hours of make-up later) who plays John Du Pont, one of the richest men in America at the time. The film begins in gloomy Oklahoma, where a brutish Channing Tatum, playing the younger of the brothers, Mark, delivers what is meant to be an inspiring speech at a school assembly but is actually surprisingly monotone and implicitly dispirited for someone who has supposedly just been crowned one of the greatest wrestlers in the world.
We begin to see how inessential Mark’s recent gold medal is to his overall happiness. He is an unexpressive, unsatisfied loner; seemingly the opposite of his amicable older brother Dave. Every time Mark Ruffalo’s character enters a scene, with a distinctive swagger that suggests he would have been perfectly cast for a role in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, he brings a sense of warmth and assurance to the painfully awkward atmosphere that drags throughout the film. When we first witness the brothers together, they are shuffling around and hugging each other as a part of a gentle wrestling warm-up and it is one of many examples where Director Bennett Miller allows a scene to speak volumes without the characters uttering a word. The audience becomes instantly aware of the brothers intimate and seemingly imperishable bond, which seems to be more father-son than brother-to-brother, with the grounded, self-confident Dave constantly tending to the wounded puppy that is Mark.
Although the siblings share such a strong relationship, there is a sense that Mark has grown up in his older brother’s shadow and that he must make it on his own to become truly fulfilled. That’s when he is offered the seemingly dreamlike opportunity to train under wrestling coach, John Du Pont, for an extortionate salary. So Mark embarks on this adventure, meeting the enigmatic Du Pont in the trophy room of his gigantic mansion in rural Pennsylvania.
At this point I was expecting a grand entrance from a heroic leader who was going to transform the disheartened Mark into an accomplished Champion in true inspiring sports movie style. My mind raced back to images of Norman Dale from Hoosiers, Herb Brooks from Miracle and Herman Boone from Remember the Titans; though my mind was sorely mistaken. John Du Pont was not like any of those men, nor is Foxcatcher like any sports movie ever made.
John Du Pont is no coach, rather a mysterious multi-millionaire who decides he’s going to invest in the US Wrestling team as another hobby to go alongside stamp-collecting and bird-watching. Du Pont is the portrait of a reclusive, vain and paranoid megalomaniac who believes that he can get what ever he wants with his unlimited cash. When we first meet Steve Carell’s character, with his beaklike nose, pale skin and hunchbacked physique, his stilted speech and hauntingly vacant stare, it is instantly apparent that there is something unusual about the old man.
With the exceptional make-up, Carell is completely unrecognisable, which works perfectly in presenting the illusion that this fictional character is totally real. Despite Du Pont’s awkward nature, Mark settles down on the vast estate, which is slightly reminiscent of the set of The Shining, an environment that is unnervingly quiet and remote. Much like Jack Nicholson’s character, the entrepreneur’s anxieties and delusions start to gradually unveil as time passes through his obnoxious invocations of American patriotism, his hedonistic use of drugs, his self-nicknaming, his worrying attraction to firearms, his puzzling resentment for his mother and generally being really creepy. Blinded by the bountiful opportunity in front of him, the grateful Mark submits to Du Pont’s order like a loyal lap dog and, like everyone else, simply smiles and nods whenever his boss does something out of the ordinary.
Then to my slight reservation, the film begins to skip large blocks of time, during which Mark and Du Pont develop a strange connection as they delve deep into a hazy world of self-indulgence, laziness and isolation. At the end of the binge, Mark has been quenched of all his athletic potential and drive and as one would expect he begins to resent Du Ponts’s suffocating control and his snappy, unjustified temper when he doesn’t get exactly what he wants.
Having lost faith in his wrestling puppet, Du Pont manages to persuade brother Dave to move to the estate and coach the Foxcatcher team, discarding Mark like a old Action Man toy and replacing him with a shinier, more expensive G.I Joe. With him, Dave brings enormous clarity and relief to what has become a troublingly reticent and ambiguous state of affairs. Dave, who is the divine essence of normality in the film, fights to bring his brother back from the darkness, whilst Du Pont becomes even more unhinged. It gets to the point that Du Pont’s lingering presence in scenes becomes completely unsettling and everything he does and says is unbearably awkward and cringe-worthy.
So does the guy who will always be remembered as Anchorman‘s lovable doofus Brick Tamland and who managed to convert The Office‘s cringe-machine David Brent in to an American sitcom legend, truly live up to this serious role? Frankly, I don’t think anyone could have done it better. Carell succeeded at making his character so repulsive that he was apparently alienated from the entire cast and crew. He barely interacted with co-stars Ruffalo and Tatum off-set, which undoubtedly added to the tension when the cameras were rolling. Besides the astounding make-up, it is clear that Carell completely transformed himself into this deeply unsavoury character and definitely deserves his Oscar nomination, although he is a clear outsider probably owing to the villainous nature of the character. However, when Carell is involved, a film is never short of humour and there are many occasions when Du Pont’s awkward delusions are simply hilarious to watch; for example, when the he attempts to demonstrate a few of his personal wrestling moves to the Pro’s and when he asks his ‘new best-friend’ Mark to refer to him as ‘Eagle’; the actors involved must have found it difficult not to crack up.
Mark Ruffalo is a joy to watch, perfectly embodying the benevolent spirit of the salt-of-the-earth Dave, and 21 Jump Street’s Channing Tatum also surprises audiences in his most demanding role yet. Tatum will be gutted to be the only major role not to be nominated as he delivers an exceptionally heartfelt performance. Although portraying a rather deadpan Neanderthal, it is amazing to see how Tatum presents the restrained nature of Mark’s boiling emotional strain and the stirring outbursts that occur when things become too hard to handle. All three stars form a triangular relationship full of suppressed thoughts and emotions that drives the film restlessly along in a stranglehold before its shattering climax.
The only annoying aspect of story are the previously mentioned time-hops that leave the audience a bit too unaware of what is going on. As there is absolutely no chance of Channing Tatum breaking into a soliloquy and confessing all, the viewer is kept in the dark. This ambiguity was most definitely intended and works well for building tension, but will undoubtedly leave audiences a bit puzzled concerning the actual events that transpired.
What we don’t have in words from the character’s mouths, we have in the film’s underlying commentary on the society and the American Dream. John Du Pont embodies everything that is wrong with privileged wealth, being the temptation and abuse of power that no other can contest. John Du Pont’s investment with wrestling seems awkwardly forced, in order to gain some sort of love, recognition and companionship that his money has never been able to provide. It is suggested that the blue-collared society that Dave and Mark represent is one that Du Pont is attracted to having been confined to his noticeably unsatisfying high-born upbringing. Stories of his disapproving mother, played by Vanessa Redgrave, paying the groundskeeper’s son to be friends with John when he was a child, offers insight into and a slight sense of sympathy for an extremely tormented soul.
The most devastating factor is the effect of Du Pont’s control; because he is funding the lives of everyone involved, it somehow makes him immune to criticism. There is a brilliantly invigorating scene were Dave is told in an interview to explain how influential his ‘mentor’ John has been, and the wrestler simple can’t say the words, owing to his concealed disdain for his sponsor. It becomes clear to the audience and to the characters that Du Pont is mad, but frustratingly no one addresses the problem owing to the sheer power the ‘golden eagle’ possesses.
There is no doubt that Foxcatcher is an unpleasant film to watch. You’ll be writhing in your seat as the tension builds and it is a fairly arduous ordeal to go through; though ultimately this has a similar appeal to that of a horror film. It won’t be a particularly enjoyable journey, but you’ll be glad you went on it. Most of the time, it will feel like nothing is happening, but that is the genius nature of Bennett Miller’s insidious story-telling and Dan Futterman & E. Mark Fyre’s furiously concentrated script, as the underlying tension eats away at you like no other film in recent memory. Foxcatcher is certainly one of the best films of the past year yet unfortunately it’s disturbing elements will stay with you long after the credits roll, not helped by the countless Underground poster adverts with Steve Carell’s spine-shivering stare following you wherever you go.
Jimminy Critic 