Steve Carell gives a captivating performance in Foxcatcher. I doubt whether any actor has worn a false nose so well since Robert De Niro's got pummeled into cauliflower in Raging Bull.
That this beak caps off a man who counted ornithology among his interests
is a fringe benefit; that the real John E. du Pont also resembled a
bird of prey has a downright sinister serendipity. Moreover, John was a
scion—with blood as blue as melancholy—and a wrestling coach; and this led him to bring Mark Schultz, a 27-year-old world
champion, into his fold.
The film begins in 1987—three years after Mark (Channing Tatum) was awarded his gold medal in Los Angeles. Wherever he is now, it certainly could use that California sun; he grunts out an inspirational speech for a gray assemblage of elementary-school kids who look too tired to yawn. He trains with his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), a fellow Olympic gold medalist who is also a wrestling coach at a university. Between the wife, kids, job, and receding hairline, one wouldn't guess that, in real life, Dave was only a year older than Mark. There's the suggestion that Mark, affectless and laconic, is developmentally disabled—and that's off-putting because it plays into stereotypes about wrestlers, and because Mark wrote the book this movie is based on.
The film begins in 1987—three years after Mark (Channing Tatum) was awarded his gold medal in Los Angeles. Wherever he is now, it certainly could use that California sun; he grunts out an inspirational speech for a gray assemblage of elementary-school kids who look too tired to yawn. He trains with his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), a fellow Olympic gold medalist who is also a wrestling coach at a university. Between the wife, kids, job, and receding hairline, one wouldn't guess that, in real life, Dave was only a year older than Mark. There's the suggestion that Mark, affectless and laconic, is developmentally disabled—and that's off-putting because it plays into stereotypes about wrestlers, and because Mark wrote the book this movie is based on.
