A Loser of a Movie

Rating: 4/10 (4 March 2015)

Last night, I watched Bennett Miller's FOXCATCHER with great anticipation. As the credits rolled, I wondered how I could possible have spent two hours and fifteen minutes with the three primary characters and know little more about them than I did when the movie started? First, we meet these two, knuckle-dragging brothers, Mark and Dave Schultz. American heroes both, young men who have sacrificed their lives — and all the cartilage in their ears, evidently — to the sport of free-style wrestling. The two gold-medalist sibs hulk around, butting heads, and slapping each other like mountain gorillas as they go through their daily training routine.
Poor Mark. Eating Top Ramen in his Spartan apartment, scowling at the world outside like an orphaned Frankenstein's monster. But alas, his phone rings. The heir to a massive fortune summons the muscular misfit to a Pennsylvania mansion. Enter Steve Carell in his Oscar-nominated role of John DuPont. We discover — awkwardly — that DuPont wrote a book about birds ten years ago. Other than that, all we learn about this very creepy guy is that he's definitely plagued with a very perverse Mommy fixation. Oh, yeah, and he fancies himself a wrestling coach and a great patriot.
(Mommy, btw, is portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave, one of two fine actresses whose efforts are wasted here on vapid, thankless, "female" roles — the other being Sienna Miller, who portrays Dave Schultz's loyal better half.)
What we don't learn about DuPont is that he was responsible for discovering two-dozen rare species of birds, founded the Delaware Museum of Natural History, donated Villanova University's basketball facility, and figured heavily in establishing the pentathlon as an Olympic event. However, those inconvenient details might have distracted us from what director Bennett Miller evidently wanted to convey — that this DuPont dude was a complete whack job, who used his Foxcatcher Wrestling training facility to buy male friends with whom he could bond and party.
The in-and-out, off-and-on fraternal rivalry between Dave Schultz and his dim-witted, severely depressed younger bro might have been the heart of the film. Or, maybe, it might have been the wrestling competition. I don't know. Miller doesn't allow any of the characters to rise to the level of protagonist. They all simply fall in and out of love with one another, exploit one another, bring out the worst in one another, get angry, pout, sulk, etc. All the while, I'm sitting there wondering who I'm supposed to care about, trying to figure out why so much time is going by, while absolutely no tension builds.
What is the core of the story? Three ape men grapple for what? Then, Mark loses his last chance at gold. Because? Because DuPont, the guy who got him strung out on coke, insists on being in his corner? This big, tough, dominate athlete is too emotionally fragile to win under uncomfortable conditions? Mark's failure brings shame on Foxcatcher. He packs his UHaul, leaving big brother behind to coach the team — evidently for the next 8 years! Then, inadvertently, DuPont puts three bullets into Dave — right in front of helpless Mrs. Schultz and Foxcatcher's supposed head of security. "You got a problem with me?" DuPont queries Dave before firing. Not with you. No. With the screenwriters and the director. Yes.
What Miller and the screenwriters have neglected to show us is that DuPont had married and divorced over the course of the narrative. And, that he had bonded with another Foxcatcher wrestler, Bulgarian Valentin Yorkanov, to whom DuPont bequeathed 80% of his $200M personal estate. Did the Yorkanov relationship figure into Dave Schulz's murder? Or, maybe it had something to do with DuPont's addiction to the Bulgarian prescription drug scopolamine? But none of that stuff is shown on screen — in a 155 minute film! Even that John DuPont suffered from paranoid schizophrenia is not at all clear. All Bennett Miller allows us to see is a spoiled, friendless nut job, who can't stand to lose. And, that's what makes FOXCATCHER a loser of a movie.