I don't know much about wrestling. You don't have to in order to appreciate a movie as good as this one.

Rating: 8/10 (11 February 2015)

I know very little about the sport of wrestling, and until I saw this film I had never heard of Dave Schultz, even though he is apparently regarded as one of the greatest figures in the history of the sport and was the victim in a sensational murder trial in 1996. Unlike some American true crime stories from the nineties, notably the O.J. Simpson affair, this one did not receive much publicity in Britain. Schultz's killer was his multimillionaire employer, John E. Du Pont, the heir to one of America's greatest family fortunes and the richest American ever tried for murder in the United States. Du Pont was a wrestling enthusiast who had formed his own wrestling team, based at Foxcatcher Farm, his country estate near Philadelphia, where American wrestlers trained for participation in the Olympics and World Championships. Schultz, who had won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, was employed as a coach for what Du Pont called "Team Foxcatcher".
The film follows the changing relationships between Schultz, Du Pont and Schultz's younger brother Mark, himself an Olympic gold medallist and member of Team Foxcatcher. Mark was in fact the first of the brothers to be recruited by Du Pont; Dave was initially reluctant to join him but later relented. It does not state definitively what the motive was for Dave Schultz's murder, doubtless because no motive ever emerged in real life. (At his trial Du Pont was found to be insane). It does, however, examine the psychological relationships between those involved in these events.
As played by Steve Carell, Du Pont is a sad and lonely man, a poor little rich boy who has never really grown up. He is unmarried, and lives in a vast mansion with only his servants and his elderly mother Jean for company. Not that he and Jean really are much company for one another, as they neither like nor understand one another. She despises his passion for wrestling, which she regards as a "low" sport, and cannot understand why he does not enjoy more traditional aristocratic pursuits. He in turn has no interest in her great love, breeding horses. He is desperately in search of friendship, but finds it difficult to make friends.
Although nothing is ever made explicit, it is implied that Du Pont may have been homosexual. He initially becomes friends with Mark; the two men confide in one another, and Du Pont even introduces Mark to cocaine, which they take together regularly. Mark, however, abruptly breaks off their friendship and moves away from Foxcatcher, while Dave remains there. Again, his reasons for doing so are not made clear; they may have been connected with a decline in his form as a wrestler, but it is also possible that he was starting to resent the older man's over-familiar attentions to him. Unlike the unattached Mark, Dave is a happily married family man, and this may in some obscure way have aroused Du Pont's jealousy, either because he is sexually attracted to Dave or because Dave's home life represents something he wants but cannot obtain for himself. A key scene comes when Du Pont tries to visit Dave at his home one Sunday and Dave politely but firmly rebuffs him because Sunday is the day he always spends with his family.
Despite, or perhaps because of, its ambiguity about the motivation for some of the main characters' actions, "Foxcatcher" is a fine film. It gave me a chance to see something of the work of a director (Bennett Miller) who was previously unknown to me, an actor (Carell) who was almost so, and two others (Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo) whom I had only seen in a handful of films. All four make vital contributions to the success of the film, and Miller, Carell and Ruffalo have all been nominated for Oscars. (Oddly enough, the film itself has not been nominated for "Best Picture"). Carell, who succeeds in making Du Pont pitiable despite his crime, gives a particularly good performance. Miller handles the action well and brings a melancholy, autumnal look to the film, appropriate to its tragic subject-matter. As I said, I don't know much about wrestling. You don't have to in order to appreciate a movie as good as this one. 8/10