Steve Carell who?
Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz in Foxcatcher
Sony Classics
You may have heard that Steve Carell appears as you've never seen him before in the new movie Foxcatcher. And he does, quite literally — the man's almost unrecognizable in the prothetic nose he wears for the role of ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist, uninformed wrestling coach, and convicted murderer, John du Pont. As a well-established comedic actor, Carell is also playing aggressively against type: Du Pont is scary as well as ridiculous — a bundle of awkwardness, mommy issues, and mental illness who's been swaddled in boundless privilege all his life. He can be funny, but never intentionally so ("And my friends call me Eagle... or Golden Eagle," he says with an absolute lack of awareness).
It's no surprise then that Carell's performance is attracting all the awards attention — it's the kind of impressive departure and physical transformation that the Academy loves (the fake schnoz alone has become a kind of signal of actorly seriousness). And despite not showing up until 20 minutes into the film, Carell's being submitted for awards consideration as one of its leads, alongside Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz.
Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz and Mark Ruffalo as his brother David Schultz in Foxcatcher
Scott Garfield, Fair Hill/Sony Pictures Classics
But Foxcatcher is really Mark's story — he's the muscled ingenue to Carell's multimillionaire monster, the one who gets scooped up from poverty and a place perpetually in the shadow of his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) and transported to the lush grounds of the du Pont estate to do what he loves: wrestle. He's the one who has to navigate a confusing, boundary-crossing relationship with his increasingly unstable benefactor. He's the one who decides he has to leave, even as his sibling attempts to make a life at Foxcatcher Farm, and pays a terrible price for it. Carell may have the showier role, but it's Tatum who's the underappreciated heart of the movie, doing his finest work to date. His brooding turn as Mark is as emotionally eloquent as the character is inarticulate.
Not to reduce anyone to being a piece of meat, but Tatum has always been an actor with some slab-of-beef qualities, whether gyrating his way through Magic Mike or playing a lovable lunkhead in the 21 Jump Street movies. He's particularly adept with characters who aren't necessarily dumb, but who are more comfortable with their bodies than brains. Mark, the most hulkish of them all, is the tragic extension of that trend, a man who's devoted his life to a sport that generates little national attention outside of the Olympic spotlight, and who works at it tirelessly but with little apparent joy. He's a physical creature, but there's no ease to how he carries himself — stiffly, with a simian swing to his stride, jaw jutting, shoulders eternally tight. "You ungrateful ape," John calls him in a moment of anger.
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