Lifestyles of the rich and crazy

Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz and Mark Ruffalo as David Schultz in "Foxcatcher." Photo by Scott Garfield and Courtesy Sony Pictures Classic.

Every generation dreams of saving America. Every new generation dreams of rescuing it from some great evil, treating it as if it were Penelope Pitstop. Every generation wants to return America to a former glory defined most clearly by its opaqueness.   

The country is a shell of itself, says Steve Carrell's eccentric John du Pont in Bennett Miller's remarkable and brutally graceful “Foxcatcher.” America is a place that can only be saved through heroism and people like Channing Tatum's wrestler Mark Schultz. As Carrell tells his young, male ingénue as he readies himself for the 1988 Olympics, “You're going to do great things, Mark, great things.”

The definition of great things beyond ephemeral success on the mat is never explained, nor does Miller want them to be. Really, the important part isn't how America is saved or what that actually means; rather, what’s most important is the person who leads it to the Promised Land.

Carrell — eerie and dang-near perfect in his performance — inserts himself as the coach of America's next batch of champions, a leader of men who gives himself the nickname “Golden Eagle.” He has little knowledge of the sport and no perceivable athletic talent — his pasty figure contrasts greatly with the nubile young wrestlers around him — but he has money, and he has just enough charisma to lure Tatum into the Pennsylvania woods. 

It's an overly difficult task to accomplish; Tatum, whose performance is nothing short of excellent, lives a lonesome life defined by rigorous training routines as he goes for his second gold medal, half-cooked Ramen noodles, a dingy apartment, and rambling speeches to bored students as a replacement for his more successful older brother David (the terrific Mark Ruffalo).

 

As he always is.

Living deep inside your brother's shadow is a torturous experience, so an opportunity to move into a wealthy man's kingdom (the titular Foxcatcher estate) to train aspiring wrestlers and train for a shot at world glory is impossible to pass up. And things go quite well in the kingdom for a while, with Carrell becoming Tatum’s de facto father figure and the young wrestler earning success on the mat and dabbling in a world of riches and opulence he could barely dream of before.

But nothing gold can stay even in Shangri-La, and Carrell's desperate and ultimately failed attempts to please his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) drive him to spurn Tatum for Ruffalo to add more legitimacy to his operation. Tensions mount between Tatum and Carrell, and the latter seems to fall deeper and deeper into his eccentricities. It ends in blood and tears.

There is no hope for a pleasant ending in “Foxcatcher” — Miller quashes any signs of optimism through his terrifying, foreboding atmosphere — because no such conclusion exists in the real-life story of the Schultz brothers and du Pont the film is based upon. (It’s worth reading about independent of seeing the film.) Then again, based on is not quite the right way of describing how real life relates to the scenes in “Foxcatcher.” The film is more of a grotesque retelling – see Carrell's prosthetics as an example – mixed with the filmmakers’ attempts to explain how a man like du Pont plunges so far into the mental abyss. The aforementioned mother issues receive a nod, as does a life of loneliness forced upon the heir to an empire, although both are too simple to fall on.

No, what drives Carrell's destruction, along with the film’s machinations, itself is the idea of an America in peril, a place that can only be saved by the strongest warriors fighting on the international stage. Those expectations are enormous, capable of crushing the fittest of men, let alone one as soft and strange as the du Pont shown in “Foxcatcher.” It’s simple enough to call yourself a leader of men; actually being one is a far different beast.

Expectations of excellence and individual success haunt Tatum too, bringing the heartbroken warriors together in search of a more perfect America. They place the burden of being a savior upon their heads, and neither man is capable or strong enough to bear that pressure.

The only one who could is Ruffalo, although he never aspires to be anything more than a wrestler and a decent human being. He’s found and cherished everything he needs out of life; a family (two kids and wife Sienna Miller), excellence on the mat, stability in life and an overarching sense of accomplishment. Ruffalo doesn’t need to save anyone and serves as a contrast between broken men like Carrell and Tatum, who force themselves to chase windmills and scowl as Ruffalo smiles through life.

Again, as he always is.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 134 minutes

Genre: Drama

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Target audience: Prestige film followers trying to keep tabs on Oscar contenders, along with current and former grapplers; the film's wrestling sequences are very well performed.

Take the whole family?: It's not suitable for kids, but that's much more attributable to the film's length and haunting ambiance than for any on screen action. For the life of me I'll never understand how the MPAA hands out its ratings; how is this worse than the vomit of gunfire and murder produced “Expendables 3,” which picked up a PG-13 rating?

Theater or Netflix?: Worth a trip to the theater to understand the Oscar buzz. Speaking of which ...

And the Oscar goes to? Possibly no one from this film, although that depends on what the tea leaves say this week. Steve Carrell has a strong shot at earning a (deserved) best actor nod, with Mark Ruffalo a pretty safe bet to make it in supporting actor; unfortunately, that will probably mean nothing for Channing Tatum's surprisingly nuanced performance. “Foxcatcher” might receive some nominations for Bennett Miller for best director, best picture and best original screenplay.

Watch this as well?: Rent David Fincher's “Zodiac” if you can. Also based on real events (and it also happens to star Ruffalo), “Zodiac” is Fincher's reinterpretation of the infamous Zodiac case that, like “Foxcatcher,” never lets the audience have a moment to breath.

 

This sequence always gets me.