How much for your soul?

Rating: 10/10 (10 February 2015)

This film fires on all pistons. Skillfully directed with an economically written screenplay it is made real before your eyes by a cast of unparalleled performances. This film is as near perfection as you can get.
The screenplay is brilliant beyond words because it is beyond words. In the case of this film, the economy of words, and the power of silence, speaks volumes. And that silence, in the hands of a director and a cast like this, roils like volcanic magma. "Foxcatcher" is the true story of two brothers, Mark and David Schultz, who become entangled in the dysfunctional mother/son relationship of Jean and John du Pont.
Steve Carell plays John, a multimillionaire loner who's family's money is so old it smells. He wisely piled on about a pound of makeup and prosthetics to the point where he is unrecognizable as the lovable goofball from "40 Year Old Virgin". He then delivers one of the creepiest and most menacing performances ever recorded on film, and it would never have been as effective if he had been in the clown suit he's been wearing for the last 15 years. Vanessa Redgrave as Jean, with only about three minutes of screen time, manages to buttress her son's weirdness with her own. They are each the byproducts of too much money, isolation, and total disconnection from consequences. They dislike one another and they dislike one another's obsessions: hers, expensive horses, his, male Olympic wrestlers. The estate they share has a world-class stable of Thoroughbreds presided over by Jean, and a world-class training center for wrestling presided over by du Pont. It is from these two fortresses that they war with one another. They are each, the only people in their respective lives, who spends any time with them that isn't paid to do so. And it is into to this toxic tar pit that the Schultz brothers are lured.
In 1987, the Schultz brothers are Olympic gold medalists in wrestling. Post Olympic glory, they are living a very modest, if not meager, life training in a run down gym for the Seoul games. The film opens with the two in a sparring practice with one another. Their moves have been studied and repeated a thousand times before and, but for a mostly disregarded bloody nose, rudimentary. This is their war, their sibling rivalry, but tamed by rules. Nonetheless, it is a conflict that reaches beyond the boundaries of their sport. Out of nowhere this daily grind is interrupted by mulit-millionaire wrestling "enthusiast" John du Pont. He makes the younger Schultz, Mark, an offer of $25,000.00 to come to his personal training center. The trade off is to acknowledge him as his coach. Du Pont, outfitted in coaching attire, walks imperiously around the gym, nodding and barking orders at his "stable" of wrestlers, without a clue to what he is doing. He knows nothing about wrestling but is well practiced at grooming those around him with money and access to his privilege. Over time, though, Mark becomes unmanageable and equally uncomfortable with du Pont's demands which are only vaguely alluded to. Du Pont then purchases the previously unaffordable David Schultz to straighten out Mark. It is a deal with the devil.
The startling pivot in this film creeps up out of nowhere when David is asked to participate in a documentary and praise du Pont's coaching. Take after take, with the film director prodding him, he is unable to say into the camera with any discernible sincerity, that he admire's du Pont's coaching ability. The footage is rendered useless but it is not forgotten. The tension between du Pont, Dave, and the younger brother Mark, who has Olympic weight on his shoulders, becomes unsustainable as the egos, dysfunction, and expectations, begin devouring the possibilities. The results will leave no winners on or off the wrestling mat.
Art Director, Brad Ricker, has washed the imagery of this film in grey; the color of decay, dust, and inertia. The pace of the film is deliberately - not fast. The silence, so skillfully directed and acted, is deafening. Carell, Ruffalo, Redgrave, and Channing give Oscar worthy performances.
The mixture of money, glory, dysfunction, ego, and the Olympic ideal, all come together here to create a compelling and disturbing picture of real life events. The snowball affect of one decision, leading to another, and another, until - well, bang, is unfurled with foreboding and deliberateness. This is a film that you can feel. It's not a good feeling, and you feel as though you are there. Not being nominated for Best Picture is unbelievable. But Oscar really only reflects achievement at about a rate of 50/50. This film will suffer the curse of being a great film about a bad thing. But it is a great film and well worth seeing. They'll get my ticket money twice.