Fox­catch­er

Two broth­ers stand on a thick rub­ber mat. Heads bowed, shoul­ders for­ward, arms locked. Their heavy grunts and squeak­ing train­ers set a ner­vous rhythm for the bru­tal bal­let in which they are entwined. This is the image of broth­er­ly love and rival­ry pre­sent­ed by Ben­nett Miller in his rich, char­ac­ter-dri­ven dra­ma, Foxcatcher.

Like the writer/director’s pre­vi­ous films, Mon­ey­ball and Capote, this one is based on true events, although the facts have plain­ly been drama­tised as a way to extract truth in what is a com­plex tale of loy­al­ty, para­noia and betray­al. The two men entrenched in bat­tle in that grip­ping open­ing sequence are Mark (Chan­ning Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruf­fa­lo). Both are Olympic Cham­pi­ons, but while the for­mer is the more impres­sive spec­i­men, men­tor Dave has the men­tal edge over his younger sibling.

He’s past his prime, slight­ly bald­ing and cau­li­flower-eared, but he still emanates great­ness. Despite his indi­vid­ual suc­cess, Mark has nev­er been able to step out of his big brother’s shad­ow, and his pent-up anx­i­ety and anger over a fail­ure to assume alpha suprema­cy comes out in fits of con­cen­trat­ed self-pun­ish­ment – in one dis­turb­ing ear­ly scene, Mark lit­er­al­ly punch­es him­self in the face.

Emo­tion­al­ly vul­ner­a­ble and blind­ed by ambi­tion, Mark accepts an out-of-the-blue invi­ta­tion to meet with mega rich John Eleuthère du Pont (Steve Carell, pitch per­fect and near unrecog­nis­able under an ugly pros­thet­ic nose and emo­tion­less grin). The heir to a chem­i­cal cor­po­ra­tion for­tune, du Pont brings Mark in by heli­copter to his gleam­ing white man­sion, set against the grand back­woods of Penn­syl­va­nia, and prompt­ly propo­si­tions him with an offer that’s too good to refuse.

With the World Cham­pi­onships fast approach­ing and the 1988 Seoul Games on the hori­zon, du Pont reveals his plans to become the sav­iour of USA Wrestling, per­suad­ing Mark with his creepy charis­ma and state-of-the-art ​‘Fox­catch­er’ train­ing facil­i­ty he’s had cus­tom-built on the prop­er­ty. With Mark’s trust paid for, Team Fox­catch­er is born. But when Du Pont asks Dave to join them, his response presents Mark with an obvi­ous ques­tion to which he has no answer: what’s the catch?

A self-pro­claimed author, ornithol­o­gist, phil­an­thropist, world explor­er and ​“gold­en eagle of Amer­i­ca”, du Pont loves two things: wrestling and his coun­try. He spouts gar­bled con­sti­tu­tion­al rhetoric about the impor­tance of patri­o­tism and encour­ages Mark and the oth­er young men he takes under his wing to ask not what your coun­try can do for you, but what you can do for your coun­try. He’s a bull­shit mer­chant. A bogus coach. A cuck­old­ed right-wing mil­lion­aire with seri­ous delu­sions of grandeur. And also, a des­per­ate­ly lone­ly man, pos­si­bly plagued by men­tal illness.

Even with his con­sid­er­able invest­ment and con­stant reaf­fir­ma­tions of faith, du Pont knows his bond with Mark will nev­er be as strong as Dave’s. He watch­es the inten­sive dai­ly train­ing regimes from the side­lines, offer­ing the odd stock moti­va­tion­al ges­ture, frus­trat­ed by Dave’s absence. Du Pont may be will­ing to go to what­ev­er lengths nec­es­sary to change his mind, but Dave is a ded­i­cat­ed fam­i­ly man look­ing for a set­tled life.

But as we all know, every man has his price, and when du Pont final­ly brings Dave into his inner cir­cle, the film shifts towards Greek tragedy — the abuse of wealth and pow­er that first instilled Mark with the belief that he could final­ly achieve the sta­tus he craves sud­den­ly becomes the cat­a­lyst for his grad­ual psy­cho­log­i­cal breakdown.

In a bizarre twist, du Pont breaks every virtue he claims to exem­pli­fy, tempt­ing Mark with drugs and lead­ing him towards a life of excess. Is he pur­pose­ly sab­o­tag­ing his pet project, or just bliss­ful­ly unaware of the dam­age he’s caus­ing? Either way, he’s an uncon­vinc­ing patri­arch, and the brief but sig­nif­i­cant inter­fer­ence of his elder­ly moth­er (Vanes­sa Red­grave) sug­gests that he too is dri­ven by a need to prove that he is wor­thy of the proud lega­cy he has inherited.

As the three men grap­ple for con­trol, the film builds steadi­ly towards a vio­lent con­clu­sion, one that Miller sub­tly alludes to with­out reveal­ing pre­cise­ly how it will unfold. When the moment comes, you’ll be left sad­dened and con­fused by the image of one man lay­ing face-down in the snow, silent­ly gasp­ing for his last mouth­ful of air. But Miller doesn’t leave us out there in the cold. He throws us right back into the ring, cap­ping things off with a famil­iar, rous­ing chant that prompts us to reflect on the lies and pro­pa­gan­da that lead young Amer­i­cans to sac­ri­fice every­thing in the name of nation­al pride.