Filmmaking 101

FOXCATCHER (A) - American master Bennett Miller has crafted a quiet, profound film about male relationships, a drama as intense as a classic horror film.

"Foxcatcher" is the tragic story of wrestling brothers Mark and Dave Schultz, gold-medal winners at the 1984 Olympics in L.A. They get caught in the web of John du Pont, of the chemical family, who recruits them to his compound near Valley Forge, Pa., so that he can pretend he himself is a wrestling coach. Du Pont is a first-class creep with serious mommy issues.

The pacing here is measured, as du Pont (Steve Carell) first ensnares Mark (Channing Tatum) and seduces him with the trappings of wealth and privilege and endangers Mark's shot at returning to the Olympics in 1988. Soon Dave (Mark Ruffalo) arrives, and he quickly realizes that something's not right -- Mark is morose and is acting like an abused child or a scorned lover. (The homosexual undertones are undeniable throughout -- this is a wrestling movie, after all.)

Miller structures this as two one-hour acts with a 10-minute coda. The director is fearless in taking his time building the narrative and refusing to clutter the screen with background noise or visual hype. Like his debut, "Capote," this is sparse but compelling. Miller wisely gives his actors time and room to create memorable characters.

The performances are top-notch. Tatum ("Magic Mike") continues to impress; he is perfectly cast here as the nearly over-the-hill monosyllabic lunkhead with an underbite. He broods throughout, and you feel his ache stretching back to childhood. Ruffalo strikes just the right note as the wiser, loving, mentoring brother, who is trying to create his own functional nuclear family with his wife (Sienna Miller) and kids. Ruffalo physically inhabits the body of a wrestler, leading with his forearms when he walks, as both brothers display a bit of a simian quality. And Carell is a revelation as the slow-burning, weirdly patriotic lunatic who tries to buy respectability and collects these wrestlers as if they are figurines for his display case. I have never cracked a smile at Carell in his various comedic roles; here, he also disappears physically into a persona, waving his prosthetic beak around like a disturbed Toucan Sam. His performance, creating a pathetic but menacing freak, makes the film.

(The only nitpick I had with the movie was the difference in ages between Ruffalo, 47, and Tatum, 34; the real brothers were 17 months apart and were in their late 20s when they were still Olympic material. At times you wonder how the old man won a gold medal just a few years earlier.)

Miller's fluid camera luxuriates over the beauty and brutality of the sport. His actors did their homework, and they create a believable world of the wrestling community. (It also helps to go into the movie not knowing -- or having forgotten, 25 years on -- how the story unfolds.)

Miller, who also scored with "Moneyball," shows an assured hand and never makes a false move. The drama never flags. The setting -- the du Pont compound -- at times is unsettling as "The Shining." "Foxcatcher" sneaks up on you, sucks you in and leaves you devastated at the end. This is mature filmmaking.