Foxcatcher

"What do you want to achieve Mark?"

Foxcatcher is the true story of two brother wrestlers played by Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum who gradually both get financed by eccentric millionaire John Du Pont, played by Steve Carell.

*This review contains spoilers*

There is some serious Oscar buzz surrounding this film, for the most part regarding Steve Carell. Under heavy prosthetics he is physically unrecognisable as this weird psychopathic character. I say ‘physically unrecognisable’ for a reason, as I personally couldn’t take him seriously. Probably my own fault as in theory I can see this being a good performance, it has all the components that I understand a good performance to be but unfortunately I only saw Steve Carell. Specifically Michael Scott from The Office, of which I am a fan. His presence constantly pulled me out of the film, and it does make me wonder whether or not I’ll ever be able to see Steve Carell as a different character.

Though the performances were good I was bothered by either how they were being directed or how the script had written the characters. I know it’s a true story and I know that the murder is the entire basis as to why the film was made. But it seemed like John De Pont was nowhere near developed enough for this event to even happen. Which is incredibly strange to me. The writer didn’t allow the audience to properly understand the motivations of the character and because of this you leave the film simply confused about what you just watched or relieved because the film (which is frankly overly long) finally ended.

Many critics have called this film character study, a film that doesn’t focus on a plot. And that’s all well and good. But achieve that a writer has to at least make their characters interesting, they don’t even have to be likable, just interesting. But when you look plainly at the three main characters, you have Steve Carell who is an underdeveloped creep, Channing Tatum who is a guy with younger brother syndrome and Mark Ruffalo who is likeable. And for a film like this which is so heavily focused on its characters that’s simply not enough, especially because the audience is meant to be invested, to be extremely invested in all three of these characters by the film’s third act.

The film does redeem itself with some stunning cinematography, which made me sign with relief every time there was something pretty to look at. But then I wondered whether Bennett Miller had hired such a good cinematographer so the audience didn’t notice his characters were underdeveloped. And then that took me out of the film. The performances from Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo were good, considering how their characters had been written. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Steve Carell represented this film at the Oscars with some kind of nomination as all the buzz seems to be focused on him.

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