Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher (2014) is a slow-burn psychodrama. Miller uses a real-life crime for an oppressive, eerie drama that's gripping, yet elusive.Eccentric heir John Du Pont (Steve Carell) approaches Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) to organize his Foxcatcher team for the 1988 Olympics. Du Pont shows an unsettling interest in Mark, pushing him into drugs and liquor, adversely affecting his athleticism. Concerned about Du Pont's influence, brother and fellow wrestler Dave (Mark Ruffalo) joins Foxcatcher and tries whipping Mark into shape. But Dave's intervention pushes Du Pont over the edge.
Foxcatcher looks at codependent burn-outs. Du Pont seems merely eccentric, firing pistols at practices and wrestling seniors, but his obsession with Mark hints at inner darkness. He spars with his horse-loving mother (Vanessa Redgrave), who considers wrestling a "low sport," and struggles to be taken seriously. Mark, unable to parlay Olympic success into real life, becomes Du Pont's friend, with an attachment bordering on servitude. He grows estranged from Dave, whose efforts to help merely set tragedy in motion.
Foxcatcher is detached and clinical, perhaps to a fault. Miller's direction opts for long shots and wide angles, whether surveying the Pennsylvania countryside or watching Mark's matches, and fading out dialog in key scenes. Neither Miller nor writers E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman probe Du Pont's psychoses, or his hold on the Schultz's, in detail beyond suggestions and surface signs. But these manifestations are disturbing enough.
Steve Carell's performance is downright eerie. John's withdrawn and aloof to a fault, something Carell presents with understated, penetrative creepiness. Channing Tatum is similarly restrained, into. Mark Ruffalo's jovial desperation provides some much-needed life. Vanessa Redgrave briefly portrays Du Pont's disapproving mother; Sienna Miller, Dave's wife.
Foxcatcher isn't intimate enough to move viewers, but it's convincing enough to creep them out. Then again, real psychopaths often elude real understanding; giving Du Pont a tragic motive wouldn't make him any less a murderer.
