Foxcatcher - B-

Quick Hit: Intense film with captivating performances, but the blips in time cause some loss in storyline.

Some movies are more visceral for the audience than others, and Foxcatcher is definitely that. It is the story of two wrestlers, Dave and Mark Schultz, both of them Olympic Champions. It is also the story of an odd, odd man named John du Pont. There is so much that surrounded these characters in the news, that, depending on your age, you may recognize the names. I won’t go into too much about what happened, because it will ruin the movie. There are two ways to write about the movie, and I’m choosing one of them: to not reveal the ending (at least until my spoiler section).

The movie opens to find Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) as a sad, shell of a man (there is an argument to saying he doesn’t achieve anything higher than this). He works out with his talented brother Dave (a big, balding Mark Ruffalo) at his brother’s gym, does speaking gigs for twenty bucks a pop, and eats Ramen. That is, before his life is changed forever by the addition of billionaire philanthropist John du Pont (Steve Carrell). Du Pont says that he wants to help Mark succeed, for the good of the country.

Carrell’s performance as du Pont was much lauded after this film (he got an Oscar nomination), and I went back and forth between agreeing and not. He is no doubt playing someone that is very off-character for him, and since this role he seems to continue to branch out more and more (see

The Big Short). However, despite the make-up (which at times is more distracting than effective), the real creep-out is the pseudo-relationship that begins to play out between he and Mark. Part father-son, part friendship, and part sexual fantasy, you cannot put your finger on what is going on. It’s very obvious that du Pont is used to receiving what he wants in life – his inability to understand that Dave Schultz did not want to join “Team Foxcatcher” is indicative enough of that (though eventually he gets Dave to join – rich folks usually do). However, where he really starts to lose me is around the time he probably begins to move into madness himself.

The acting performances are all pretty good. Carrell I already touched on, and Ruffalo is almost hard to comment on – he’s so good (as usual) that you almost forget him for long stretches. His most powerful scene is definitely the scene where he is asked to call du Pont his mentor. Tatum is given the reigns to the movie, and he doesn’t completely falter – his intensity is what lends some scenes to be the best in the movie. In fact, the scene where he head-butts a mirror was completely unscripted, and caused Tatum to actually get hurt.

The entire film is shot in lots of bleak tones. Despite the fact that years pass (lots of years – like 10) between the beginning of the film and the end, there always seems to be only one weather – dark, on the edge of snowing, bleak weather. Director Bennett Miller (Moneyball) tends to maintain this type of atmosphere, and he continues to do so by impregnating long pauses into the delivery of different lines. This has the benefit of making the whole film seem like it is a precursor, despite the fact there are some very intense scenes (like the one where Mark pigs out and then subsequently has to lose a ton of weight).

Spoilers for the end to follow
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At the end of the film, du Pont seems to lose it completely, and goes and shoots Dave Schultz. This is incredibly jarring, because there is an immense amount of time that goes missing here: almost seven years. In the film, there is no indication of this, and it seems to be saying that du Pont has lost it because Dave removed his brother Mark from du Pont’s clutches. The whole

scene is surreal, but it is ultimately effective, because the confusion and terror is shocking.

Overall, Foxcatcher was a movie that I enjoyed quite a bit, but I would have loved it with some small changes. So, I’m going to give Foxcatcher a “B-“.

For more on this film, check out IMDB. ​