Buying approval

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2017)

Foxcatcher is a brooding slow burn film from director Bennett Miller about two men looking for approval. One from his more gregarious older brother, the other from his disapproving horse fixated mother.
Channing Tatum plays Mark Schultz, an Olympic gold medal winner in the 1984 Olympics somewhat living in the shadow of his older brother David (Mark Ruffalo) also an Olympic gold medal winner.
In the opening scene we see Mark talking uncomfortably to a class of children at school. This is good for Mark as it allows him to get out of his brother's shadow. Yet when we see Mark wrestle he is always more effective when David gives him a pep talk.
After a disagreement between Mark and du Pont, David is persuaded to join the training team. You can see his more effective training methods at play but at the same time it has a negative effect on Mark who already descended to a spiral of booze and cocaine under du Pont's influence and he becomes embittered performing poorly in the Seoul Olympics.
The film is based on true life and tragic events with du Pont's influence suffocating those around him. He wants approval, he wants to be a mentor when all the time you think when you see him wrestle with the young men that he just wants to cop a feel of them.
This is an actor's film. Carell looks unrecognizable under heavy make up with Tatum also putting more of a performance where less is more. The film is absorbing and despite the slow pace, yet at times it can also be lifeless.