While I am still not over the idea of Hollywood’s nice guy Steve Carell playing a obsessive psychopath, there are apparently other things going on in Bennett Miller’s dark drama Foxcatcher. There’s Channing Tatum, of course, playing Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz, and Mark Ruffalo as his brother Dave. Then there’s the complicated relationship that develops between the Schultz brothers and John du Pont (Carell), as the latter helps them train for the 1988 Seoul Olympics at his new training facility on his estate. As the three men interact, obsession, power, and paranoia begin to take over, and du Pont’s increasingly erratic and disturbing behavior threatens to drive a rift between the brothers. Exciting stuff, made all the more so when you realize that it’s based on a true story.
You can just feel the menace and alienation in a new batch of images from Foxcatcher. It’s a dark film, after all – even images dappled with sunlight look grey, the figures starkly isolated against brighter backgrounds. Carell’s physical transformation remains one of the more striking aspects of the images, but I’m excited to see what Tatum and Ruffalo make of their characters as well. The rest of the cast of Foxcatcher, by the way, also includes Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller and Anthony Michael Hall. That in itself should be enough to get you into the theater.
Based on all available word of mouth, Foxcatcher is not to be missed. It has done the festival circuit, competing for the Palme d’ Or at Cannes and appearing at the Toronto International Film Festival. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, especially in regards to the performances by our three leads.
Foxcatcher will open in theaters on November 14. You can check out the latest images below.
