Foxcatcher: Deeply Disturbing Drama

Foxcatcher was widely praised at the Cannes Film Festival last year, earning Bennett Miller the Best Director award. Steve Carell received a great deal of kudos for his portrayal of the immensely bizarre and enigmatic John E. du Pont, a dramatic turn that is a complete departure from anything you've ever seen him in. Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum are equally magnificent as Dave and Mark Schultz, the brothers who won gold medals at the 1984 Olympics and came to du Pont's attention when he decided to start a wrestling team. Based on actual events, Foxcatcher tells a deeply weird and unsettling story, but the way in which it is told may undermine your actual enjoyment of the movie.

The movie opens with Mark Schultz, shortly after his Olympic win. Mark is dedicated to the sport of wrestling, but he isn't a great public speaker or natural-born leader like his much more charismatic brother, Dave. Mark is struggling to support himself, and his dream to win another gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics seems impossible. Enter John E. du Pont, heir to the Du Pont family fortune and more eccentric than any fictional millionaire you've seen. Du Pont doesn't know anything about wrestling but has inexplicably decided he wants to become a wrestling coach and lead Team USA to victory at the World Championships and Olympics. He woos Mark to come live on his sprawling Foxcatcher Farm estate and start training a team at the wrestling facility he has established there. Flattered by the attention, Mark tries to establish himself as a successful trainer. Unfortunately, he is just not as capable as his brother, and under du Pont's dubious guidance, things quickly take a turn for the worse.

You may or may not know how this story ends. I had some idea, though not the precise details, so I spent two hours waiting to see the thing happen that I vaguely knew would happen and in the meantime wondering what on earth was actually happening on screen. Foxcatcher is mainly a psychological drama that tries to get inside these characters' heads and find an explanation for the abrupt occurrence at the very end. But the more it tries to make sense of these people, the more unclear their motivations become. Du Pont has mommy issues, megalomania, and a coke habit; Mark is impressionable, jealous of his older brother, and losing his way. Du Pont has money but he has no skill, while Mark is struggling to make money off his one great talent. Dave is the "normal" one, with a wife and kids, a good job, and a passion for his sport, which makes it all the more tragic when he gets recruited into the crazy world of Team Foxcatcher.

I didn't think I liked this movie when I saw it, but upon reflection, it is actually quite fascinating. The story beats drag on a bit, but the film presents some brilliant character studies and the actors are all doing some of their best work to date. The score is eerily perfect, raising goosebumps at various moments and reminding you that this is not a happy tale about achieving the American dream but instead a look at how that dream can go horribly wrong. I would have preferred a shorter movie, but then maybe it wouldn't have afforded me enough insight (or lack thereof) into these characters and their twisted psyches. Ultimately, we can never really understand these men, but Foxcatcher is an intriguing attempt to deconstruct them and present their disturbing story.