Photo by Scott Garfield, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Professional wrestling has had it’s share of dark tragedies, both inside the ring and behind the scenes. But amateur wrestling tends to be much less dramatic, with matches consisting of guys in similar singlets who undergo rigorous, yet simple, training to prove who is the better grappler. Every once in a while, however, an eccentric personality that would be more at home in the pro wrestling world gets involved with amateur wrestling and things get more than a little weird.
Based on the true story of multi-millionaire John Eleuthère du Pont, whose limitless family funds allowed him to indulge in any Howard Hughes-like whim, Foxcatcher recounts the gripping story of du Pont’s obsession with fostering the best wrestlers in the world. Du Pont (played by Steve Carell with facial prosthetics and a dramatic departure from his usual comedic roles) initially recruits Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) to his Foxcatcher Farms, an elaborate estate known for equestrian training. Having built an equally elaborate wrestling training facility, du Pont rescues Mark from small town anonymity with promises of returning him to his former Olympic glory. Mark, whose simplistic nature is played to surprising perfection by Tatum (who walks with a hunch and retains a pouty underbite for the film’s entirety), soon realizes that du Pont is a man who always gets what he wants thanks to his wealth.
Photo by Scott Garfield, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
As a result, Mark delves into du Pont’s dark indulgences, then becomes less cooperative when du Pont’s demands become more and more unreasonable. So du Pont convinces Mark’s brother Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), also an Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler, to uproot his family and move to Foxcatcher. Du Pont then becomes the official sponsor of USA Wrestling and the entire American Olympic wrestling team becomes Team Foxcatcher, training under Dave for the 1996 Summer Olympics. (Though he doesn’t appear in the film, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling Hall of Famer Kurt Angle was part of Team Foxcatcher before winning his gold medal.) Having a rich guy fund such an amazing facility in hopes of proving that America has the world’s best wrestlers seems too good to be true, and the tension between du Pont and the Schultz brothers becomes more and more apparent. While it’s never fully disclosed in Foxcatcher, du Pont is apparently a paranoid schizophrenic who has difficulty with any sort of confrontation (among many other illogical things), as evidenced by troubling behavior such as walking into the training facility and firing a gun into the ceiling to get the attention he feels he deserves. This scene foreshadows what will happen once his questionable motives and mental problems come to full fruition, which I won’t spoil for those who aren’t familiar with this tragedy.
With incredible performances from Carell, Tatum, Ruffalo and others, as well as a compelling real-life story brought to dramatic life by director Bennett Miller and writers E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher is a shocking and surreal look at a mentally disturbed millionaire whose inner conflict has both tragic and triumphant results. It’s the type of movie that messes with most of your emotions, which is exactly why it’s such an excellent piece of cinema.