an eerie drama about weird obsession and the "American dream"

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2014)

For a lot of people, but especially athletes, we're told that going for a respective native country is a very admirable, noble, Go-For-It aim. And for Americans, it's the ultimate sort of hope, at least in conventional terms - being the "Best" and representing the country in places like, say, the Olympics. This is what John Du Pont (a mostly unrecognizable Steve Carrell) tells to the young, impressionable Olympic gold medal winner Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum, recognizable as can be), that his ambitions should be directed to get the gold - again - for America, as it is. Schultz is impressed by Du Pont, if nothing else by the attention of someone who is, as Mark sees, a super wealthy man (one of the biggest wealth-areas in the country), and wants to join him in his quest for Olympic glory in 1988 along with his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) who is not quite as enthusiastic, mostly due to his family/current work commitments. No matter, Mark will do it for John, this will work... for a little while...
Foxcatcher is a helluva piece of work, mostly in how director Bennett Miller stages his scenes and lets them unfold with his cast. This isn't a film with urgent line-a-minute drama. On the contrary this moves more like a slow-burn dramatic film from the 70's (think, I don't know, Fat City or something in terms of tone), and he spends a lot of time just watching his actors move around settings, looking at objects and pictures in the Du Pont home, the horses in the barns and fields, the wrestlers moving their bodies this way and that (like apes at times, even the brothers, which makes Du Pont's comment at one cruel moment - "You ungrateful ape" - to a character all the more brutal and spot-on). There's a lot of watching and waiting, and all the time, surrounded by stuffed birds, desperate, lonely men, and eerie, weird vibes, it makes for a film that us uncompromising.
All three lead actors pull in solid work here. Tatum has been getting amazing notices from critics across the board, and this is his best work as a dramatic actor (personally I still prefer his comedic work or Magic Mike, but that's neither here nor there), in large part because he is there to react and listen. He doesn't have to emote in LOUD ways, if that makes sense. His most intense scene is in a hotel room and is mostly in shadows, so it's really about the internal space this character inhabits. And it's a compelling, interesting one: here is a man who is an Olympic champion, yet without this opportunity from Du Pont he would be still eating Ramen noodles and few prospects. Tatum goes for this uncertainty, then certainty, then going-off-the-rails, and then doom and gloom, with a quiet quality that comes through extremely well.
Ruffalo has an easier role to play - the more "normal" character here, who has his most pressing conflicts when dealing with his younger brother, or having to basically lie to a camera crew doing a propaganda documentary on Du Pont as a wrestling coach - but still is fascinating to watch for how much emotion he puts into a 'straight' man in awkward or tense moments like those wrestling matches or the prep. He may be underrated come awards time when Tatum and Carrell get the bulk of the limelight, but he is no slouch here in the slightest.
And Carrell. Jesus. In a way there can be a big criticism of his performance, or maybe it's just down to how the writers present him (one of them from Miller's Capote, the other from Something Wild), that he's one-dimensional, or not that 'deep' exactly in his enclosed, rich weirdo. He really doesn't 'change' so much during the film. Things happen around him and he is not the most predictable Character (with a capital C) as he may be benevolent one moment, and slap your face the next or get mad you didn't put the 50-caliber machine gun on the tank (yep, that happens, that's how wealthy the Du Ponts were), but he is pretty much the same sort of "off" kind of crazy from start to finish. It's just that by the end, his crazy finally comes un-spooled, whereas before it's more about the package of this man. (What's the line in the movie Speed? 'Poor people are crazy, I'm eccentric.')
But all the same, Carrell inhabits this guy, and makes his loneliness and (maybe) latent homosexuality or whatever it is about him that gets him engaged about wrestling to a fullness. I felt repulsed, intrigued, confused, scared by this guy, who lurks around his mansion and comes to these wrestling practices - and at one point wrestles himself, albeit in a fixed match which he may or may not know about - like a vampire. Indeed how Schultz comes to this man's premises, becomes ingratiated, it's only a wonder the man doesn't get more people under his wing. Actually he does, under the guise of still having a lot of wealth and being able to do whatever he wants. If we ask an actor in such a quietly towering role to just be truthful to being a freak, Carrell is Freak of the Year.
Foxcatcher at times may be a little long, or a little ambling in its pacing, but it all builds up. By the time it comes to that climax, it's shocking not so much for what it is but how inevitable and, maybe, preventable it could have been. The stakes in this movie are about mental wellness, attraction, and being enveloped in guises and dreams for something 'more'. It's presented like an All-American nightmare; one wonders if this is on a double-bill with the recent Nightcrawler if some would want to just give up on the promises for a better society.