Foxcatcher is one of the lesser known films from last year’s awards season. It tells the true story of Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz, (Channing Tatum) who is invited to the prestigious Foxcatcher Farm to train for the 1988 Olympic Games. Seeing this as a way to escape from his older brother Dave’s shadow, Mark immediately accepts the offer. At first everything is great, but then the man who invited Mark, and owner of Foxcatcher Farm, John DuPont (Steve Carell) begins to lead Mark down a dangerous path that damages his mental health and self esteem. At the same time, DuPont becomes obsessed with recruiting Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) to the wrestling team he has formed. This does even further damage to Mark, who had believed DuPont had genuine interest in him and then came to realize he only wanted to get to his brother. Dave joining the team only sends Mark into a downward spiral and soon the story shifts to a psychological stand off between the three men ending with a dramatic confrontation.

Foxcatcher was certainly an intriguing movie with mysterious characters and interesting interactions that left you feeling like there was so much lying under the surface of what you were watching on screen. The bleak landscapes and minimalist presentation matched the mood of the film which was vaguely creepy in my opinion. However, watching the film does require patience and attention to detail and meaning in order to really understand. It was by no means a lighthearted film that spelled everything out for the audience from point A to point B. I typically like these type of movies but I think that Foxcatcher’s story was just a little too empty for me. During a lot of the scenes I realized there was a lot more going on in between the lines of dialogue and actions of the characters, but what was playing out on screen was just so boring and unexciting that I couldn’t really get into it.

But what initially intrigued me was the fact that the DuPont family is old money and one of the wealthiest families in America and they own a lot of the land around my house in southeast Pennsylvania and northern Delaware. What used to be Foxcatcher Farm is located just fifteen minutes from my house and I had never heard this story so I was pretty interested.

I was also very impressed with the acting overall, but especially Channing Tatum who consistently reminds us he’s not just a pretty face, but also a great comedic and dramatic actor. However, the real star of the show was Steve Carell, who appeared completely unlike himself covered in facial prosthetics and acting as the obsessive and disturbed multimillionaire John DuPont. His performance alone is worth watching the movie for.

Not my favorite of this awards season, but still an impressive film that I would encourage anyone to watch. 3.5 stars.