Foxcatcher Review

It’s true what they say: money can’t buy you happiness or love, and it certainly cannot buy anyone talent. It is, as has so often been noted, the root of all evil and Steve Carrell’s miserable but wickedly wealthy wacko in Foxcatcher proves it perfectly.

Foxcatcher is the story of Olympic champion wrestlers, brothers Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schulz (Mark Ruffalo). Mark is the younger brother who won a gold medal at the ‘84 Olympics while Dave is the smarter of the pair, a loving family man who coaches his brother with care and passion. The blue-collar brothers are an inseparable  team until the magnificently wealthy John Du Pont (Steve Carrell) sends an envoy out to collect Mark and fly him first class out to Du Pont’s beautiful Pennsylvania country house. Foxcatcher Farm is a mansion that would dazzle most but is particularly impressive to working class Mark, and a tour reveals the place is filled with race horses, trophies and Du Pont’s snooty mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

Du Pont is a sickeningly rich, sad little spoiled man-child. Patriotic, lonely and demanding, he manages to charm Mark (mostly with offers of money) and lures him out to live and train in a beautiful training facility on the grounds. Du Pont’s mother does not approve of wrestling and though her son is desperate for her to acknowledge his passion, commitment and talent, it is clear Du Pont is simply throwing money around in order to fuel his own ego and pride. He funds the American national wrestling team in the run up to the ‘88 Seoul Olympics in the hope of some of that gold rubbing off on him in the eyes of his unimpressed mother, but also out of a strangely philanthropic sense of national pride.

Mark moves to Foxcatcher but his brother Dave resists because he is hesitant to shift his happy family around the country. While Mark is the gold medal winner, Dave is smarter, more capable and an essential part of Mark’s success. With Mark keen to step out from the shadow of his brother, and DuPont realising the importance of luring Dave, the three men are about to come into a tragic conflict.

Foxcatcher is a true life tragedy that gifts its central performers with real characters that are an actor’s dream. The central trio of Tatum, Ruffalo and Carrell are superb with the former funny man on particularly fine form and almost completely resisting the urge to turn Du Pont into a caricature. Carrell dials down anything that could make Du Pont too amusing, though there are a couple of awkward moments that raise a laugh (check out his brilliant nickname he asks to be called by Mark) and instead becomes a highly unsympathetic but sadly understandable monster that is the dark heart of the story. Carrell will get all the plaudits due to his impressive physical transformation that is completely lacking in vanity but Tatum and Ruffalo also deserve their fair share of praise. Ruffalo is typically good as the loving family man but both him and Tatum have an incredible physical presence in the film also. Their body language and movement is instantly distinctive but seems to come from a place of years of practice wrestling in the gym.

Director Bennett Miller follows Moneyball and Capote with another fascinating true story filled with attention grabbing performances. Like Moneyball, the idea of money not being necessary for great sporting achievement is revisited but instead of the charismatic Brad Pitt figure, Carrell steals the film as a sad, pathetic, insecure little man who believes money can stop anyone saying no to him.

For those who do not know the real story behind the film, try to avoid spoilers as the ending will likely be a huge shock. For everyone else, the real surprise here is Carrell whose performance as a man a million miles from normal will likely be a strong contender come award season. Catch it.

Foxcatcher is playing at the BFI London Film Festival at the following times:

Oct 16th 7.15pm Odeon Leicester Square

Oct 17th 12.00pm Odeon West End Screen 2

Tickets on sale from 18th September.

More on the BFI London Film Festival 2014

More on the Cannes Film Festival 2014

Reviews of other films being screened at the festival:

White God

Timbuktu 

Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes) 

The Blue Room (La Chambre Bleue) 

The Salvation 

Goodbye to Language (Adieu au Langage)

Mr Turner

 

Song For Marion falls short of the high notes

 

One for the ‘grey pound’ crowd, Song for Marion has terminal illness, pensioners singing about sex, and families being torn apart and brought back together.

What is most interesting is that this is from director Paul Andrew Williams, the man who brought us savage (but not brilliant) home invasion thriller Cherry Tree Lane and prostitute on the run from pimp drama London to Brighton. Working again on a low budget, Williams has also again written the script and directed Song for Marion. For anyone who has seen his previous films, this turnaround is a bigger shock than anything he has ever mustered despite the grimness of his previous work.

Marion (Redgrave) is terminally ill but refuses to stop participating at her local seniors' choir, despite her miserable husband Arthur’s lack of enthusiasm. Lovely choir leader Elizabeth (Arterton) spices things up by getting the pensioners to sing heavy metal, rap and even take on Salt N Pepa’s Let’s Talk About Sex for  an upcoming choir competion. Marion’s health deteriorates, and Arthur must endure a bitter journey of self-discovery in order to come to terms with life without Marion.

Vanessa Redgrave is wonderful as Marion and while Terence Stamp has the best and most interesting character in grumpy old git Arthur, he fails to make the most of it, not hitting the emotional high notes that are needed from a script like this. In fact despite the fantastic work of Gemma Arterton and Christopher Ecclestone (as Arthur and Marion’s son), once Redgrave's Marion sings her final song, the rest of the film gets a bit flat.

I was fortunate enough to attend a special screening of Song for Marion at the Curzon Mayfair where the film was followed by a Q&A with directorPaul Andrew Williams, star Terence Stamp and producer Ken Marshall. From their answers, it emerges that Song for Marion was a very personal film for many involved. Stamp speaks of second chances and Williams argues what makes his film stand out from the recent Quartet that also featured an elderly cast and singing.

I give the film 2/5 but I really don 't think I'm the target audience. If you're 50 or above or a massive fan of Stamp then give it 3/5 as I'm sure you will enjoy it more than I did. It's a shame as with a slightly better lead performance and a less conventional story, this could have been something more special.

Song For Marion is out now in the UK. Watch the trailer below:

Terence Stamp talks new film Song for Marion and second chances

I was fortunate enough to attend a special screening of Song for Marion at the Curzon Mayfair where the film was followed by a Q&A with director Paul Andrew Williams, star Terence Stamp and producer Ken Marshall. From their answers, it emerges that Song for Marion was a very personal film for many involved. Stamp speaks of second chances and Williams argues what makes his film stand out from the recent Quartet that also featured an elderly cast and singing.

They started off by discussing where the idea for the film came from. Williams revealed he wrote the film six years ago and Ken Marshall who has worked on Williams’ previous films talked about the desire to be able to take their mothers to see one of their films.

Terence Stamp spoke of being approached to play Arthur: ‘I thought it was a great script. I wasn’t sure about whether I was right for it. Then they showed me the first film that Paul had made called London to Brighton which was obviously made for sixpence and a toffee apple but it was wonderful. Then I met him and he kind of talked me into it.’

He then talked about drawing on his experience of his own father for playing the role: ‘He’d been a merchant seaman from the age of 15 and he’d been a merchant seaman during the war and shipwrecked three times. So by the time the war finished and I started getting to know him, the kind of grace had been knocked out of him and he was very stoic and I can’t really remember having any emotional connection with him at all really. And so I thought to myself, if I get in trouble with this, I’ll just think of Tom and I’ll play it like him’.

Stamp went on to discuss preparing for the role: ‘I didn’t really research it much. I thought I know Dad and I know how he was; I know how he was with me so I’ll know how to play it with Chris [Ecclestone who plays Arthur’s son]. What I wasn’t really prepared for was the kind of energy on the set. It was very unusual. Working with artists like Chris and Vanessa and Gemma, there was a kind of underlay of energy and from the first day, the whole thing was very emotional and what was wonderful personally was that the emotions were the kind of emotions that I never really had before on set and I think what most film actors are hoping for is that the best of themselves will manifest in between action and cut and the irony is that you can’t do anything about it. There’s no way you can kind of reach it. Either they come and they’re there for you or they’re not. And they were just there and they seemed there for everybody. I just thought I’m not going to bother; I’m just going to learn the words and get out there. Fortunately the director got those takes and printed them which was a big luxury. 

On director Paul Andrew Williams, Stamp said ‘he said to me at the end of the first week, he said rather loudly, “Wow you and Vanessa you just nail it on the first take” and I said “listen, when you’ve got a Redgrave and a Stamp, you’ve got a hundred years of film acting”’.

Williams chimed in: ‘It’s true that there were a lot of first takes used but we spent like three hours rehearsing each scene before that first take. What was very interesting was that when I met Terence, I remember he talked about the first take and stuff like that and it’s actually true that a lot of the time the first take, sometimes the second, is always the most natural. And it was interesting with an actor such as Terence just how much you only see afterwards. I have to be honest I think Terence was amazing in this and it was just so interesting to see how different actors work and part of the director’s job is to try and understand that and try and understand what a certain actor might need at some point and when to step back. I hope we came to an understanding fairly quickly. When he says it was one take, there were so many times when it was really there and I don’t think had it been someone else, it would be the same.’

On why he chose Stamp for the role, Williams said: ‘Anyone who has seen Superman 2 [in which Stamp played infamous super villain General Zod] would know that when you watched that film, you can see Arthur all over it. To be honest after I met Terence it was really interesting because I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t slightly intimidated by meeting him. But the fact that when I turned up and he was there in his shorts and his t-shirt and his sandals, this is London obviously, and after half an hour, I realised I was talking to somebody who I could talk with and talk about the character but I also felt this guy is going to the character justice. Obviously when you write the script, there’s a big element of yourself that you put into it, your own stories and your own family and I think it was very clear early on, just as he was getting on the tube, not in a limo, he was getting on the tube that I was like man this is going to work really well and I was very excited.’

On how comfortable he was with singing in the role, Stamp answered after a long pause: ‘This was a very unusual kind of occurrence really because earlier in my career I had turned down the wonderful Joshua Logan who’d asked me to play King Arthur in Camelot and I turned it down because I genuinely thought that I couldn’t do justice to the score and I felt that I would be re-voiced when the film was finished. So I turned it down but I turned it down for the wrong reasons. I turned it down because I was frightened. In all the years since, I’ve kind of regretted that because I had to get a lot older before I realised what he saw in the young Terence as King Arthur and I was sad that I didn’t have that as part of my resume. And when this came up I had real reservations about being up for the part. I didn’t feel that I could do it how it was written and I was also very worried about the song and then I heard that they’d got Vanessa and I thought wow, she’s the wife, my character’s called Arthur and I have to sing. So it really felt to me that life was giving me a second chance and I know it sounds superficial but for a performing artist, things like that make a great deal of difference because I suddenly thought to myself if this has got my name on it, I don’t have to worry about it. I’ll just do it, I’ll just get on with it, I won’t worry about it. And in fact I only had time for two lessons with the singing teacher I know and we went through the breathing and then I just learned the words and I sang them to myself every moment of the day and night. But the film went so swimmingly well that I thought I’m not going to worry about this song, I’m just going to do it. Because it was very small budget, we only really had time for one take. I know they boasted about Les Mis that they sung it live, but we sung it live in one!

When asked about the similarities between Song for Marion and Dustin Hoffman’s recent directorial debut Quartet, Williams said: ‘I haven’t seen it. That’s not a comment against Quartet, I just haven’t had time. I think the idea of having a story that features singing, that’s a similarity, a story that features some characters who are from an older generation, that’s similar but from friends and people I trust who have seen both films, actually from what I gather, there’s actually not that many similarities in terms of the whole shebang. Also we had Terence.’

It will be very interesting to see where Paul Andrew Williams' career heads next and I read in Total Film that Stamp might be doing a sequel to The Limey so keep your eyes peeled.

Song For Marion is out 22nd February 2013. My short review is here.

Review of CORIOLANUS (Ralph Fiennes, 2012)

Voldemort does Shakespeare

8/10

After targeting concentration camp inmates and a boy wizard in some of his darkest acting roles, Ralph Fiennes sets his sights on a lesser known Shakespearean tragedy for his film directing debut.

John Logan’s screenplay takes the Bard’s original script as a foundation for a contemporary re-telling of General Coriolanus’ rampage of war, oppression, family strife and political wrangling.

Old Shakey’s wordplay might be as  impenetrable to many younger viewers as the ‘youth-speak’ of last year’s Attack the Block was to many older viewers, but Fiennes lets the performances and violent set-pieces do much of the talking in this confident and clever adaptation.

Unlike Baz Luhrmann’s flashy 1996 Romeo + Juliet update that featured heartthrob Leo DiCaprio swooping Claire Danes off her feet to a modern soundtrack, MTV style editing and hyperactive camerawork, Fiennes’ direction is far more restrained and less likely to grab a teen audience.

However, Shakespeare’s theatrical language for the most part translates well to the screen.  The themes of power, politics and the rule of the people versus leadership and authority feel particularly relevant with comparisons easy to draw with contemporary movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring.

As well as calling the shots, Fiennes takes the lead role of Caius Martius Coriolanus.  Amidst riots in his home, the general of ‘A Place Calling Itself Rome’ leads his army against the Volscians and their leader, Coriolanus’ sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler).  

After a successful battle but failing to kill his nemesis, Coriolanus returns home to great praise and his loving family.  His mother (a breathtaking performance from Vanessa Redgrave) encourages him to run for consul and despite briefly winning the support of the Roman Senate and the commoners, a pair of scheming senators bring about the general’s downfall as he rails against the idea of the rule of the people.

Coriolanus is banished but joins forces with the Volscians and with the help of his old enemy Aufidius decides to bring ruin to his former city and its people.  The only folks who can stop him are his family and old friend Menenius, a standout performance from the ever reliable Brian Cox.  

With a cameo from Channel Four’s news anchor Jon Snow and the use of what could easily be actual footage from war zones, the contemporary relevance of Shakespeare’s tragedy is easy to digest.  Fiennes uses modern locations, weapons, and details such as televisions, cameras and mobile phones to bring his modern re-telling into the 21^st century.

Despite the script’s use of Shakespearean language, fans of writer Logan’s screenplay for Gladiator will be gripped by Coriolanus’ similar mix of violent battles and political drama.

It might slightly over stay its welcome but the film packs enough mighty performances (Fiennes, Redgrave, Cox) and verbal and physical confrontations into the two hour running time to keep both Shakespeare devotees and newcomers alike entertained.