7/10

Rating: 7/10 (3 February 2015)

A very difficult film to wrap your head around, yet not the type that is so haunting or deep you will be thinking about it for long. "Foxcatcher" isn't the masterpiece we were promised by the amazing hype surrounding it, nor is it worthy of all of its awards attention, especially considering other films which were left out in favor of it..ahem..Damein Chazelle..ahem..Jake Gyllenhal, yet in no way is this a bad movie.
I have to address this up front, because it is the thing that is bugging me the most: the direction. It is excruciating ambiguous to the point that you could call it brilliant and weak at the same time. There are elements where the direction shines very bright: the movie looks amazing, the way by which it moves through the drama is clearly the way in which it is intended to be and most of all the actors give amazing performances which are clearly and brilliantly orchestrated by Miller. Yet at the same time, there are astonishing storytelling gaps, really hard to get my head around, lots of aimless scenes that despite never being boring they bring the movie to a length that is really exaggerated. But, most of all I did not get the point. So many elements are left in the shadows, it is such a hard film to read and to understand, there really could have been lots more.
What keeps "Foxcatcher" alive are undoubtedly the performances by Carrel, Tatum and Ruffalo, Ruffalo being the best in my opinion. There is definitely more than just makeup to the transformations the actors go through, which ultimately results in three layered, complex and engrossing performances. Tatum and Ruffalo are utterly brilliant and Carrel is equally good if not more, but his performance is immensely toned down by the fact that you just don't have the basic character information or background to get what's the deal about him. The movie goes to great and successful depths to study John DuPont, but at no f**king point did I have some basic tools to interpret him and it was very frustrating. But anyways, because of these stunning performances, the film has a undeniable charm, for the lack of a better word, to it that manages to keep things going on. Yet I can't say the movie ever got me emotionally and tension-wise, and even less when it came to giving me something or making a point.
To sum it up, I really do respect this movie and was engrossed by a good part of it, but it was a little disappointing and I wanted to love it, which I ended up not.