Foxcatcher (UK Rating: 15)
Director Bennett Miller has built his reputation on making films out of true stories with what appear to have limited cinematic appeal. Capote (2005) told how author Truman Capote wrote his bestseller, In Cold Blood and won Philip Seymour Hoffman an Oscar. Moneyball (2011) followed real life baseball manager Billy Beane as he tried to rebuild his team using mathematical formulae. In Foxcatcher, released on DVD on Monday, 18th May, he explores the dark side of sport - and human nature.The sport this time is Olympic wrestling. Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) had already won gold in 1984, when billionaire John Du Pont (Steve Carell) offered to train them personally so they could win again at the Seoul Olympics. Mark accepted straight away, but Dave didn't join him until sometime later, and concentrated on working with his brother. However, he and Du Pont never got on from the start…
The film takes its audience to the more sinister side of the American dream. The Du Pont family has untold wealth and power with all the material trappings that go with it, but John's relationship with his domineering mother (Vanessa Redgrave) is distant and strained. He's taken up interests that he knows she won't like, like wrestling, in a perverse effort to get attention from a woman who he describes as having paid the chauffeur's son to be his friend when they were both young. At the time, he believed the boy was his one true friend. Combining his character with the talent and ambition of the Schultz brothers makes for a combustible mix. Paranoia, fuelled by drink and cocaine, sets in and Du Pont's obsessive nature means he sees Dave's influence on Mark as a huge threat.
It's a complex film, dark and unsettling, but Miller has stayed true to his customary style of filming, telling the story straight and allowing the power of the narrative and the acting to do the work. This time, however, some of the crucial scenes are dialogue free, underlined only by some soundtrack, and that variation in style makes them even more powerful.