In “Foxcatcher,” an eerie horror story about one American have and one have-not, a startlingly transformed Steve Carell
plays John Eleuthère du Pont, the chemical company heir. A dabbler
extraordinaire and apparent fantasist whose family fortune was partly
created on battlefields across the world — as a producer of gun powder,
dynamite and plutonium — the real du Pont collected monumental amounts
of shells, birds and stamps as well as guns and, as the wealthy can do,
other human beings. Among the most remarkable of these was an Olympic
wrestler, Mark Schultz, who, as embodied by Channing Tatum, is the latest in a seemingly never-ending line of poetic male primitives.
Much
of what’s publicly known about the relationship between the real
figures in this strange tale comes from news reports that broke after a
catastrophically violent episode upended both their lives. Directed by Bennett Miller
from a screenplay by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, “Foxcatcher” is
prefaced by the common assurance that it’s based on a true story,
although all the usual caveats apply, with changes, elisions and so
forth. This is familiar ground for Mr. Miller, whose films include two
fictions rooted in history, “Capote” and “Moneyball,”
which, along with being just really good stories, take diagnostic pokes
at the national character and its swamp of confusing, contradictory
ideas about material success, hard work, self-invention and, inevitably,
what it is to be a man.
“Foxcatcher”
has another good story, though it’s a slippery one. Beautifully acted
and impeccably mounted, it is light on historical details and heavy on
atmosphere, character and chintz. The first time you see Mark he’s alone
in a gym wrestling with a grappling dummy, an apparatus that looks like
an anthropomorphized boxing bag, complete with head and stubby arms.
It’s a crude pas de deux, somewhat like watching Gene Kelly get frisky
with a beanbag, and hypnotic because of its exotic choreography. It’s
also off-putting because there’s something slightly comic and borderline
pathetic about a man who is, for all intents and purposes, wrestling
with himself. Soon after, Mark delivers a speech to some school kids —
he wants to tell them about America — for which he earns a princely $20.
You don’t hear much of what Mark, who’s most expressive when he’s grunting and grappling on a mat, says other than in 1984
he was a champion, winning the gold medal hanging from his neck. The
scene cuts away before he’s finished his speech, but like his solitary
wrestling, it helps establish the narrowness of his world and the
movie’s thematic terrain. By the time a school official is writing Mark
his $20 check, Mr. Miller has announced at least some of what he wants
to tell us about America. Mark is so isolated visually and narratively
that even when he eats — he scarfs fast food alone in his car, and
slurps instant noodles in his grim apartment — there’s no question that
you’re watching the emergence of a character’s existential condition
rather than some guy chow down.
The
checks have many more zeros after Mark is summoned to the du Pont
estate, a vast swath of prime real estate in Newtown Square, Pa. There,
John has created a wrestling facility that he’s baptized Foxcatcher
Farm, and which, through his patronage, he hopes or more rightly expects
will lead to Olympic glory. Mark accepts the offer to live and train at
Foxcatcher, dazzled by John’s wealth and quasi-religious pitch — a hash
of patriotism, paternalism, entrepreneurialism and old-fashioned
hucksterism. Despite Mark’s appeals, though, his older brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo),
himself a gifted wrestler who doesn’t want to uproot his family,
declines to join the crusade. When John learns that he’s been turned
down he pauses so long that it’s clear the word no is foreign to him.
Much
of “Foxcatcher” takes place at this increasingly unfunny funny farm,
with its rolling hills, patrician veneer, expensive kitsch, tiptoeing
servants, stable of horses and a wizened, wagging finger in the form of
John’s disapproving mother (Vanessa Redgrave). Mr. Miller’s handling of
the earlier stages in John and Mark’s relationship is impeccable and
sometimes lightly, uneasily comic. Mr. Carell’s physical transformation
is perverse, hypnotic and a touch distracting, and you may find yourself
searching for the familiar face behind the pasty skin and large
prosthetic nose that juts from John’s face like a cruel joke. Little by
little, with long stares, an old man’s shuffle and strange phrasing, Mr.
Carell transforms the character from a figure of ridicule into
something truly grotesque.
Mr.
Miller, however, wants more than just an ordinary American sideshow,
and he unwisely tries to expand the story when just telling it would
have been enough. At times he seems to be trying to resurrect the idea
of two Americas that’s crucial to “Capote,”
which tracks Truman Capote’s investigation into the murder of an
ordinary family by a pair of killers. But there’s no one here like
Capote to guide you through the murk and no one who gives the spectacle
of human struggle its spark, as the baseball savant Billy Beane does in
“Moneyball.” Mark and John make a fine odd couple in “Foxcatcher”
(things get seriously weird at the farm), but they never evolve into the
kind of deep, meaningful figures who can carry the weight of Mr.
Miller’s symbolism and all those American flags.
Mr.
Miller does his finest work with his three superb leads, though I wish
he had made more room for Mr. Ruffalo, who enters and exits as Dave
flashes in and out of Mark’s life. Some of the best scenes in the movie
are of the brothers, including an early one in which they train in their
old gym, hitting and grasping in a pantomime of aggression and
affection, the crowns of their heads touching like the antlers of young
stags testing each other. It’s rare to see such physical male intimacy
on screen, especially among men not bonded by war. And it’s in the
depictions of this intimacy, in its tangle of bodies and desires — the
images of John squirming on top of and below other men say more than any
of his pitiful speeches — that “Foxcatcher” rises to the occasion of
real tragedy.
“Foxcatcher” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Gun violence and language.
Foxcatcher
Opens on Friday
Directed by Bennett Miller; written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman; director of photography, Greig Fraser; edited by Stuart Levy, Conor O’Neill and Jay Cassidy; music by Rob Simonsen; production design by Jess Gonchor; costumes by Kasia Walicka-Maimone; produced by Megan Ellison, Mr. Miller, Jon Kilik and Anthony Bregman; released by Sony Pictures Classics. Running time: 2 hours 14 minutes.
WITH: Steve Carell (John du Pont), Channing Tatum (Mark Schultz), Mark Ruffalo (Dave Schultz), Vanessa Redgrave (Jean du Pont), Sienna Miller (Nancy Schultz), Anthony Michael Hall (Jack), Guy Boyd (Henry Beck) and Dave Bennett (Documentary Filmmaker).
Opens on Friday
Directed by Bennett Miller; written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman; director of photography, Greig Fraser; edited by Stuart Levy, Conor O’Neill and Jay Cassidy; music by Rob Simonsen; production design by Jess Gonchor; costumes by Kasia Walicka-Maimone; produced by Megan Ellison, Mr. Miller, Jon Kilik and Anthony Bregman; released by Sony Pictures Classics. Running time: 2 hours 14 minutes.
WITH: Steve Carell (John du Pont), Channing Tatum (Mark Schultz), Mark Ruffalo (Dave Schultz), Vanessa Redgrave (Jean du Pont), Sienna Miller (Nancy Schultz), Anthony Michael Hall (Jack), Guy Boyd (Henry Beck) and Dave Bennett (Documentary Filmmaker).
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