#78: Foxcatcher

Release Date: November 14th, 2014

Format: Theater (The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, CA)

Written by: E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman

Directed by: Bennett Miller

4 Stars

D and I saw Foxcatcher at the beautifully restored Egyptian Theatre, followed by a Q&A with director Bennett Miller, and later, sushi, across the street on Hollywood Blvd. What a night.

I’ve seen Foxcatcher a half dozen times now and it really is one of my favorite films. The story is remarkably unusual and tragic (and true), and I think Miller is especially masterful with tone here. He’s only directed three feature-length narrative films (Capote, Moneyball, Foxcatcher) and the common thread in his short filmography is his ability to deftly navigate a contemplative, soulful tone. He has a natural talent for allowing scenes to breathe and for allowing his characters to exist in uncomfortable situations, in which they are often out of place and have their professional and personal lives on the line.

Foxcatcher is the story of Olympic gold medalist wrestling brothers, Mark Schultz and his older brother Dave, who make a fateful decision to lock up with eccentric millionaire and heir to the du Pont family fortune, John E. du Pont. With no professional money-making opportunities for the brothers in collegiate style wrestling, no marketability in the form of advertising, and no financial support from USA wrestling, an offer for free housing, a salary, and a state-of-the-art training facility on du Pont’s family estate at no charge seems like a pretty sweet deal. 

But Dave, and the audience, are wondering the same thing: What does John E. du Pont have to gain from all this? 

According to Mark, du Pont is a patriot. He simply wants to restore America to its rightful place as the leader of the free world, and what better opportunity to do so than to personally fund the USA Olympic wrestling team? 

But of course it isn’t that simple. John E. du Pont, as portrayed in an unnerving yet (thankfully) restrained performance from Steve Carrell, is a complex man. He is scarred by childhood and a domineering mother. He is a closeted homosexual. He cannot establish or maintain intimate relationships. He is a drug addict. He is paranoid. And ultimately, he is murderous. 

I say the performance from Steve Carrell is “thankfully” restrained because so much of the movie rests on it. Outfitted with a large, prosthetic nose and with his association to The Office at the forefront of audience members’ minds, there was a considerable risk that came with his casting. In a lesser director’s hands, Carrell could have easily strayed into camp or a showy Hannibal Lector-style performance, chewing up the scenery. Instead Carrell and Miller choose to portray him as quietly suffering and completely inept at forming human connections. We hate his actions in the end, and maybe even him as a person, but like Mark and Dave, we have a degree of sympathy for him from the beginning. 

And what great performances from Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo. I’ve written a few reviews about movies involving sports so far, and their depictions of gold medal-quality wrestlers was believable to my untrained eyes. And even more believable was the brothers’ deep, at times unspoken, bond. I love the scenes of Dave lightly training and stretching Mark as a way of breaking through his brother’s troubled emotions; the brothers have a tender, primordial love, much like primates who groom and cuddle to show their affection because they lack the verbal skills to capture their feelings. 

It’s a beautifully sad movie, and it fits nicely into Bennett Miller’s filmography, and possibly, after listening to his Q&A, his psyche.  

In Capote, Truman Capote is personally and professionally withered by the moral dilemmas he encounters while writing In Cold Blood. In Moneyball, Billy Beane nervously rides a stationary bike in the bowels of the Oakland Coliseum while his career hinges on the experimental, small salary Athletics team playing on the field above him. And in Foxcatcher, Mark and Dave Schultz risk their literal lives in the hopes to further their Olympic wrestling careers and provide for themselves and their families. 

Listening to Miller speak, I couldn’t help but make the connection between him and his film protagonists. Miller hasn’t made a movie for ten years now - nothing since Foxcatcher - and during his comments on stage he mentioned that he finds making films difficult and sacrificial. He said that for some directors, making films is restorative, that they live to make movies and creation adds to their lives. For Miller he mentions that it is quite the opposite. Much like his characters, he loses pieces of himself during the process. He is maimed by the end, and the turnaround for approaching his next film takes longer and longer. For my own selfish reasons, I hope he’s able to pull himself up off the mat after Foxcatcher and makes at least one more flick.