Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher (2014) begins in 1986. Mark Schultz, an Olympic gold medallist wrestler, is invited onto a team that John du Pont, heir to the du Pont fortune, is building on his estate. There is money, there are facilities, there is attention. Then du Pont brings in Mark's older brother Dave and things start to come apart. In 1996 du Pont shot Dave Schultz. Bennett Miller stages it almost silently. The exchanges are short, the pauses long, and nobody's intentions are ever fully explained. Miller won Best Director at Cannes in 2014 for it. Steve Carell plays du Pont, Channing Tatum plays Mark, Mark Ruffalo plays Dave. Carell is unrecognisable under prosthetics, and having an actor from comedy in the part sharpens the unease. Mark Schultz reacted angrily at first, saying the film implied a homosexual dimension to his relationship with du Pont. He later withdrew those remarks, called the film a miracle and apologised to Miller. It received five Oscar nominations. It cost 24 million dollars and grossed 19.2 million worldwide. It runs 134 minutes. Good for: true crime, quiet cold direction, and acting. Less good for: the pace is very slow and the film never explains itself. The real timeline is compressed, a decade shown as something shorter, which makes cause and effect look more direct than it was.