Movie Reviews - Foxcatcher and Wild

I believe I've mentioned in the past I'm not really a movie buff (though when I say that, I think of Dana Ivey in the remake of Sabrina - the way she says "...BUFF?!" is hysterical. I'm always quoting movies to myself in my head.  OK. Moving on).  But I've recently seen a couple of movies that have been highly touted as Oscar vehicles for their stars, so I thought I'd jot down a few notes.  I agree that both stars do fantastic work and would be worthy Oscar contenders, but I didn't find the films that surrounded their performances to be entirely successful...   (fyi, the photos I've attached from the films came up on the internet without photo credits.  I will of course remove them if so asked)

After Thanksgiving dinner, my pals and I took a stroll.  We passed by the Sunshine Cinemas on the Lower East Side and when I saw it was playing Foxcatcher, I decided to stop.  My pals went to see another movie closer to their home.  I've been very interested in Foxcatcher because I'm a big fan of Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo, and I'm also a big fan of Olympic sports, so I remember when the action that led to this movie actually happened.

Steve Carell plays milionnaire John du Pont, who, out of the blue, decided to fund Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz (played by Channing Tatum), for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.  Schultz and his brother had both won gold medals in 1984, but their life paths diverged afterwards - Mark became a sullen, socially awkward misfit, while his brother Dave (played by Mark Ruffalo) became a coach and had a happy family life with a lovely wife and two kids. 

There are so many psychological issues floating around this film that are never addressed, it's a little odd.  The film is very atmospheric, but it's also flat and rather sterile.  The acting is fantastic by all three men, and, of course, by Vanessa Redgrave who plays du Pont's domineering mother - I found her so compelling that I was often wondering, when she wasn't on screen, what her character was up to.  Is that my problem or the fault of the film?  Who knows...

I did get a good sense of the connection between the brothers and the insular world of Olympic wrestling.  What was missing was more...something.  There was so much that was unsaid - all three main characters were socially awkward and intensely nonverbal.  But that can make a film hard to watch, or at least hard to connect to.  When so much of the anguish is so deeply internalized that it never gets expressed, it can be frustrating as an audience member.  At least this audience member.



But, again, Steve Carell was fantastic.  He is nearly unrecognizable under some facial prosthetics and with a bizarre, off-kilter, speech pattern.  He is very wily in knowing just how long to hold off continuing his next line - the pauses pull you in and he quits just short of making you think "ugh, never mind."  I mean, clearly the subtext was that he was completely dominated by his mother, perhaps schizophrenic, and possibly a DEEPLY closted gay man.  But the movie never tells us, or really shows us, anything.  There was a weird vaguely gay subtext that probably didn't belong in this edit of the movie -either put it in full force or don't.  Don't just tiptoe around this man's crazy craziness.  Mark Ruffalo, as usual, was completely honest and compelling.  Seriously, has he ever given a dishonest performance?  You could see his love and compassion for his brother, which superceded his distrust of du Pont.  He was just so real and great.  Channing Tatum was also quite good, though his character suffered from the internalization problems.  He was so closed off and shut in, it was almost hard to care about what happened to him.  He clearly had separation anxiety and maybe some daddy issues, but he has so little dialogue and I really couldn't live on sullen looks alone.  Not the actor's fault, though.  I think it's the direction and the script and maybe the editing of the movie that let him down a bit.  Or let me down a bit.

If you're interested in seeing some really good acting in a true story that asks more questions than you probably want (but doesn't answer many), go to see Foxcatcher.  The three leads, and Vanessa Redgrave, are always worth a look.

I went last night with a beautiful gal pal to see Wild, the new movie starring Reese Witherspoon.  I am a huge fan of Witherspoon's, I find her whip smart and funny and she always makes clear, truthful choices for her characters.  No fussiness for Reese.  Wild is also based on a true story, on a woman's search for self after the death of her beloved mother.  She decides to hike along the Pacific Crest Trail for 1,100 miles to try to reconcile herself to the loss of her mother and the disintegration of her marriage.  Reese gives a thoroughly committed performance as Cheryl Strayed, a self-destructive but vulnerable woman who just wants to find meaning in her life again.  Her performance is really smart, honest and beyond reproach, but I found much of the movie to be a little too reliant on flash cuts and manipulative flashbacks and song choices.  Plus, like Foxcatcher, a lot of what happens is so internal that I could've used a little more creative license and a little less solitude.

In reading some press about the movie, I see it follows the form of the original memoir, with many flashbacks and non-chronological storytelling.  I don't mind that, because often memory will trigger emotion which will trigger action.  But I did find some of the flashbacks to be a bit gratuitous and heavy handed.  And the on-screen placards that came up to tell us what day of the hike we would be seeing just became annoying.  I started to think, ugh, hurry this up.  Which probably wasn't their goal.

Laura Dern, as the beloved mother, also gives a wonderful performance, but I found her character to be a little too saintly.  Of course, that may be how her daughter remembers her, but that much perfection stacks the deck against Cheryl.  Cheryl also meets up with so many people during her hike, most of whom are men, and we are constantly set up to feel that someone is going to take advantage or hurt her.  At one point, we even see a gun and I thought of the Chekhov line about never showing a gun at the beginning if you don't mean to use it at the end.  So the movie always had the possibility of peril and I'm sure that's how her real-life experience panned out, but to have nothing come of the peril seems manipulative.

 

There's also a lot of humor and honest humanity in Wild, so I did enjoy it, and I definitely think it's worth seeing because it's nice to see a story with a strong (if flawed) female front and center, but I think it could've been even more moving as a whole.  That's not to say I didn't tear up at the little deus ex machina at the end and his little song...

 

Maybe I need to up my film consumption.  I don't know.  I did want to see the new Disney film, I just never get around to it.  I think the only other movie I'm REALLY looking forward to is Into the Woods, which I've already informed my family we're seeing on Christmas Day.  Oh, wait, no, I'm seeing a movie Monday night.  You'll just have to wait to find out what it is...