Truth is much stranger than fiction in this very high-quality bio-pic.

Rating: 9/10 (1 April 2016)

Yet another bio-pic. Well, anyway, it is based on true events.
I didn't think I was going to enjoy this film very much but almost from the start, I was hooked.
It is the fascinating story of the relationship between an upper- class, eccentric multi-millionaire, ( John du Pont), and two working-class, champion wrestlers. The two brothers are already Olympic champion wrestlers at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and Dupont wants to spearhead their bid for more medals in the 1988 Games in Seoul.
Du Pont persuades the younger of the two brothers (Mark Schultz) to join his wrestling training team, Foxcatcher, and to go and live in his state of the art training facility, which he built as annex to the family mansion. For the first time, Mark rises out of the shadow of his much wiser and revered trainer-brother, Dave.
Du Pont also wants Dave, and for a while, Dave refuses all Du Pont's efforts to recruit him to the team along with his younger brother. After a series of 'issues' with Mark, DuPont eventually persuades Dave and his family to come and join his brother at the training centre.
The father/son relationship which had developed between Mark and Du Pont is shattered and Mark becomes embittered and withdraws into himself as Dave takes over his brother's role and becomes the main trainer of the team.
The 1988 Olympics go badly for Mark and he leaves Du Pont's training camp, later to be followed by his brother. Unfortunately, neither of them quite realised just how crazy Du Pont had become and Dave pays for it with his life.
That this is an off-beat movie , there is no doubt; but as the good folk say, truth is much stranger than fiction and never was that more the case than in this very high-quality movie.
We have a number of fascinating relationships to saliva over: the brotherly love between Dave and Mark; the Du Pont/ Mark, father-son relationship, followed by the break-up of that relationship after Dave's arrival in the training camp. Last, but by no means least, we have the almost Dickensian relationship between Du Pont and his mother; who he could never satisfy and who held an enormous controlling spell over him until her dying day.
It seems to be the case that once Du Pont was free of his mother's controlling influence; his inherent mental instability went into over-drive.
The film is reasonably faithful to what happened in real life, although the timeline in the movie has been very much shortened from the real one. I don't believe this detracts from the integrity of the story and in most important respects, the film faithfully relates how this tragedy played out.
There is nothing in this movie with which I can find fault and it is certainly worthy of an Oscar nomination for best movie, which it didn't receive, along with best director, which it did.
As for the actors – all of them play blinders, but you have to single out Steve Carell as Du Pont who acts out of his skin.
And an honourable mention to Vanessa Redgrave who played Du Pont's mother.