Foxcatcher (2014) * * *

Directed by:  Bennett Miller

Starring:  Steve Carrell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Anthony Michael Hall, Vanessa Redgrave

I liked Foxcatcher without loving it.    I was intrigued by some portions, while held at arm's length in others.     Yet, Foxcatcher is beautifully photographed, cold, desolate, and tragic.    It is not the type of movie one would "enjoy" like an action thriller or a romantic comedy, but it can be admired nonetheless.   

Based on true events, Foxcatcher tells the story of two Olympic gold medalist wrestling brothers, Mark and David Schultz, whose lives become tragically entangled with millionaire John Dupont (Carrell).    As Foxcatcher opens, Mark (Tatum) is living a life of lonely solitude.   He trains with his older, more lauded brother Dave (Ruffalo), while living in a dumpy apartment eating ramen noodles and earning a meager living speaking at elementary schools.     Late one night, Dupont's assistant calls and flies him first class to Foxcatcher, Dupont's vast horse farm near Valley Forge, Pa.    Dupont offers Mark a job training his stable of wrestlers for the 1988 Olympics.    "Name your price," Dupont says, and Mark blurts out "$25,000".     Mark has little idea that Dupont would've likely paid much more.    Dupont also wishes to lure Dave into the fold, but Dave refuses to uproot his family.   

Dupont is a strange man with a big, misshapen nose who speaks and behaves under a fog of cocaine and mental illness.     Carrell's performance is all the more frightening, not only because I knew what would eventually happen, but because we sense he is a lonely man forever trying to please his disapproving mother and failing.    This rejection builds up inside him until he finally acted on it in January 1996, killing Dave in front of his family.    "I had one friend when I was a child and I found out at 15 that he was paid by my mother to be my friend," he confides in Mark.    We witness his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) express her disapproval of Dupont's love of wrestling.   "Wrestling is a low sport and I don't like to see you that low."

We learn soon that Dupont loves wrestling because he uses it as a way to indulge his repressed homosexuality.    He intently watches men rolling on the mat, acting as a coach, but really just preferring to watch.     Dupont does very little coaching.    The one time he attempts to coach is done so ineptly that it causes snickers within his stable.     Because he pays for the facilities and puts his group up in nice quarters on the property, Dupont sees himself as a coach, father figure, and friend, especially to Mark.    Dupont hooks Mark on cocaine, even briefly becoming his lover, which is implied if not ever seen.    Throughout it all, Dupont wishes Dave would be in the fold, mostly because Dave is Dupont's Moby Dick.    Like Captain Ahab, pursuing Dave gives Dupont something to strive for.    Dave eventually comes aboard, but notices Dupont's strange behavior rather quickly.    He also believes his brother is not well physically or mentally either and manuevers him away from Dupont.

The performances are strong.    Carrell's presence casts an eerie pall over the entire movie effectively.   Tatum is physically imposing, and naive to Dupont's motives.     Tatum projects a man starved for love and approval.   Dupont gives him the approval he has forever sought.    Dupont easily manipulates Mark, saying that he has lived in Dave's shadow his whole life.     The most fascinating performance is Ruffalo's.    He is a student of wrestling who has learned to move on with his life after his active wrestling career was over.    He is intuitive and cares deeply for his younger brother.     He is a good man who did not deserve to be murdered.    Ruffalo provides the most well-rounded character, one we can relate to more easily than Mark or Dupont, who both are scarred and tortured in their own way.    Much of the action takes place on Dupont's large, spacious, yet cold estate.     There is no happiness there, only a cold exertion of power and influence.     

Because Dupont was wealthy and a member of the famed Dupont family, this story grabbed headlines in 1996 because we witnessed a rich man who has it all nevertheless become unhinged and give in to his base desires.    His desire was to kill.   Why was that?    We can speculate that he knows
that, aside from money, he has little self-worth.     He enters an over-50 wrestling tournament which he sponsors and wins because his opponents are paid to lose.    He can not accept that he is a failure as a coach, friend, and son.     This eats at him until he acts out on unsupecting Dave one winter morning.

When Foxcatcher was over, I was aware the movie didn't delve into Mark's feelings on his brother's death.    He is seen becoming a cage fighter, which he did successfully, but how did he feel about his benefactor murdering his brother?    Dupont was convicted of murder and died in prison in 2010.    Foxcather is chilling, sometimes sterile, and a very quiet film, with occasionally the simple piano score breaking the silence.    We know everything is building to the eventual murder of Dave Schultz.     I admired Foxcatcher even if ultimately it wasn't fully engaging.      Foxcatcher is presented in such a fashion that the people never can truly penetrate their cold surroundings.     Maybe that is the point.