Foxcatcher

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Bennett Miller/Starring: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller and Vanessa Redgrave

I wish I hadn't known about the John du Pont story before seeing Bennett Miller's extraordinary new film Foxcatcher. I followed the developments in the local paper in the mid 1990s'; finding the story compelling for many reasons. But though I knew how the story on the screen would play out, it didn't detract from the experience nor did it make the film any less powerful.

I also found Miller's Moneyball to be equally absorbing but his new film has catapulted him into the dizzying heights of creative brilliance. If that sounds like fulsome praise, then I suggest you see the film for yourselves.

The du Pont family fortune was made substantial by arms manufacturing and its chemical industries, which allowed them to pursue excellence in equestrian sports, for which they were renown.

For reasons explicable only to John du Pont, he developed an obsessive interest in Olympic and world class wrestling. By providing wrestlers with a training facility in which to pursue a world championship or gold medal, he probably felt (as we see in the film) he could attain and experience a vicarious victory; one that might challenge the family's equestrian achievements--at least in his mind.

When the story begins in the mid to late 80s', we meet the two 1984 Olympic gold medalist brothers whose lives became entwined with John du Pont's; older brother David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), and his younger brother Mark (Channing Tatum). We see the brothers training; grappling on a mat and trying to maneuver with arms and hands to execute moves. Mark's demeanor; angry and brooding, contrasts sharply with his older brother David's, which is more gregarious. Miller lets the camera rest on the two brothers as they exchange throws. The scene plays for awhile as we get some sense of the brothers passionate commitment to the sport and their competitive spirit. Mark eventually draws blood from his brother's nose when he upper-cuts him with his head. Rather than grouse, David merely wipes his nose then resumes practice.

Channing Tatum affects an under-bite, which gives him a neanderthalic appearance and lends his anger extra intensity. We don't understand the origins of his anger but we know years of wrestling have hardly served as a coolant.

One day, as Mark kills time alone in his very modest apartment, he receives a call from one of John du Pont's assistants, who suggest Mark visit the wealthy industrialist on his estate in Pennsylvania. With all travel expenses paid, Mark agrees. Arriving by helicopter, Mark discovers the du Pont estate is located near historic Valley Forge, which we soon learn plays a mythic role in John's life.

The first meeting between John and Mark is very odd. John is phlegmatic and reserved as he watches Mark with the eyes of a carnivorous bird observing its prey. John even mentions his nickname is "Golden Eagle" and suggests to the bewildered wrestler that he go bird-watching on his estate but not without presenting him a book on birding, which he happened to write.

But we learn John's interest in Mark has little to do with birds. With patriotic fervor, he tells Mark that he and his brother Dave should have been better recognized by the country for their achievements in the Olympics. Shortly thereafter, John leads Mark to a building which on the inside is an impressive gym tailored specifically for wrestlers. Stunned and pleased, Mark is further awed by John's offer to allow Olympic hopefuls to train on the Foxcatcher grounds. He also offers Mark a $25,000 salary and the use of a chalet as his residence on the estate.

Also intrigued by Mark's brother David, John deploys the young wrestler as an emissary to lure his brother to Foxcatcher. David asks Mark the very pertinent question: "What does he get out of this?" The deceptively simple question proves to be more complicated than John's "contribution to America" explanation.

Unable to convince his brother to join him at Foxcatcher, John and Mark develop a friendly relationship and become closer as training begins in earnest. In the relationship that blossoms, Mark accompanies John on an inspection of a military vehicle of DuPont industries' design, only to watch him angrily demand a .50 caliber machine gun for the armored carrier. He then sees John slap the clipboard out of the military contractor's hand. We, like Mark, get a taste of John's violent temper, which seems all the more shocking coming from someone so seemingly unflappable and kind.

And we wonder, as David does, what really motivates John to provide so much for a sport his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) believes is "low." It's in the tension between John and his mother where the psychological footprints of his actions are laid bare. The mother's gallery of Equestrian trophies is suddenly sharing space with medals earned by John's Team Foxcatcher at an international competition. Like the sibling rivalry John perceives between Mark and David, we see a similar rivalry between he and his mother; one more subtle and just as fierce. After John sponsors a wrestling tournament in Phoenix for more mature men, he shows his mother his first place trophy, which she recognizes as the sham it is. We see that John has been scarred by his failure to please his mother.

But it isn't only a rivalry John shares with his mother. During a conversation, John relates his lonely childhood to Mark and an incident where he discovered his only friend was actually someone hired by his mother to fulfill the role. In a moment of commiseration, Mark divulges that he too had no friends growing up, which completes the empathetic bond the two men share.

Before John is finally able to draw David to Foxcatcher, we see him slowly become unhinged. He inexplicably (and ominously) visits--with gun in hand--the training facility where the wrestlers are waiting to begin practice. After briefly watching the wrestlers, he raises his gun and fires off a round, much to the shock and dismay of the team. Another incident follows soon after when John visits the wrestlers, who are gathered to watch T.V. at Mark's chalet. When John confronts him about the wrestlers inactivity, Mark mentions giving the group the morning off. What follows is hardly unexpected, as John slaps Mark. The relationship deteriorates soon after and with it, Mark's performance on the mat. After David moves to Foxcatcher to become part of the training regimen, Mark qualifies for the 1988 Seoul Olympics but only with difficulty. Complications arise at Foxcatcher when John's Svengali-like control of Mark is threatened by the brothers troubled but close relationship.

In one of the film's strange ironies, Mark tries to convince David to leave Foxcatcher to coach at BYU, only to be told his brother has no wish to leave.

Mark performs badly at the Seoul Olympics, losing in a first round rout. On his return to Foxcatcher, we see John watching Mark's moving van pull away from the chalet. What follows soon after seems almost tragically inevitable.

Even though I followed the story in the New York Times, I realized how little I knew about the interpersonal dynamics and John du Pont's frail psyche. The film concludes horrifically as we come to understand how one man's brittle self-image and feeble self-esteem could be the catalyst for a grisly, violent act.

In my recollection of the movie, I try to exercise objectivity by identifying the film's flaws but Foxcatcher is nigh perfect (in my estimation) and it easily challenges the year's best for cinematic excellence.

Steve Carell's performance has been heralded by considerable buzz, and I must say he lives up to it. Unrecognizable in his facial prosthetic, he quite simply vanishes; allowing an entity to inhabit his body. To watch Carell gaze stolidly over his upturned nose at those around him is enough to give one the creeps. Behind the veneer of calm seethes something dark and disturbed, which Carell captures expertly in his tour de force performance.

No less impressive are Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo. Tatum has been careful, at least in recent years, to guard his career from excessive second-rate Hollywood filmic incursions. Here he balances his physical performance with psychological nuance. His rage-induced mayhem inside a hotel room is powerful and self-destructive, which Tatum executes with emotional cogency.
Ruffalo is excellent as David and again shows what he can do with choice material. And for her brief appearance as John's mother, Jean du Pont, the ever-excellent Vanessa Redgrave is able to convey so much about a mother's disappointment for her son while also infantilizing him.

Miller maintains a somber mood throughout, which is made possible in part by the use of muted colors. Everything indoors and out seems monochromatic and devoid of life and joy. Like the monument to Valley Forge seen earlier in the film, the Foxcatcher grounds seem very much like a memorial rather than an estate, which is echoed in the colonial facade of the du Pont home.

The theme of class difference and its attendant mutual hostilities isn't lost on screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, who have imagined Mark and David to be pawns of a rich man's whims. For all of John's talk about America and his patriotism, and the pride he takes in discussing the sacrifices made by men at Valley Forge, he has few qualms about buying men he deems heroes while regarding them as a hobby.
Foxcatcher will no doubt be on many cinephile's and critics' year's best lists; a distinction it richly deserves. It is a resonant, cinematic achievement and another stop on Bennett Miller's artistic, upward spiral.