Foxcatcher: piercing, shattering, spellbinding

Foxcatcher is a crime drama (of sorts) that has already been dubbed ‘Oscarcatcher!’ as it barely puts a foot wrong. It is tautly directed, deftly written, thoroughly gripping and offers psychological heft as well as sublime performances all round, even from Steve Carell’s prosthetic nose, which deserves a nomination in and of itself. (Schnozzle of the year?) It’s also based on a fascinating true story, although the less you know about this story, particularly how it ends, the better. I would even advise you to stop reading right now, but I need the money, plus the abuse in the comments section below. My life wouldn’t be worth living without that. How would I even know I was alive?

This is a tale (sort of) about two American brothers, Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), who were both freestyle wrestlers, and who both won gold at the Olympics in 1984. The film opens a couple of years after that, with Mark, who is the younger, and is now reduced to showing his medal to children in schools for $20, and lives by himself in a grim apartment where he dines on microwaved meals. Tatum plays Mark with an ape-like gait and a jutting lower jaw, but also with such an extraordinarily sensitive energy we know Mark is feeling what he can’t express; that just because he says little, and can’t articulate his loneliness and desire, it doesn’t mean neither are there. He still regularly meets with his brother for a wrestle — a weird kind of dance that is both tender and bloody — but his brother has moved on and is now a successful coach with a family. (His wife is played by Sienna Miller, who is given very little to do, and does not have anything interesting going on in the nose department, just so you know.)