Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) is on a wrestling mat before the opening scene cuts to a classroom where he attempts to raise kids’ interest about what it is to be an Olympic winner – guest speaking on the virtues that allow one to obtain fame. But his own fame now lives in a small Pittsburg apartment with granny wallpaper and crappy appliances.
Enter Steve Carell, eccentric billionaire John du Pont…of the du Pont’s – the family behind the largest chemical company in the world. He requests to see Mark – sending a first class ticket – so he can give him a speech on our country’s lost moral values…DuPont is steeped in pride and history. He tells Mark that he will pay him $25,000 a year to train him.
And so duPont assembles his team of goons to be at his beckon call. Dupont at the soul of him turns to a study of insanity, going from Mark’s friend, to brother, to father, and eventually to pyscho.
DuPont’s mother (Vanessa Redgrave) can barely stand (or sit in her wheelchair) to be in the same room with him. It’s almost a contest of who loathes each other more, giving us a rare glimpse into what east coast old money might be like. Carell becomes more tortured with each scene’s turn, as he realizes that all the money in the world can only buy him entitlement, but not buy his mother’s love or respect. And so the story becomes one of wanting to be accepted, respected, and building the family that each of the men lack (and since all Mark wants is for his brother, Dave, (Mark Ruffalo) the man who raised him, to be at his side.) But he now lives out west with a family and wife (Sienna Miller.)
The film is about determination and desperation until one of them finally overcomes the other to the shocking ending. A ticking study into the depth of desire, the tackling of brotherhood and less about the sport of wrestling, it’s mesmerizing to watch the characters who seem to form an invisible mind game like classics Citizen Kane or more recently The Social Network, where power-houses don’t know when to stop. But that would make sense since Bennett Miller’s previous films Capote and MoneyBall were also about determined and bizarre characters. Yet this slow-paced film is Bennett’s finest work to date.
As for Tatum Channing and Mark Ruffalo…the wrestler brothers are unrecognizable in spirit and in stance, authentically embodying the least respected sport out there, as they enter every room and every scene one muscle at a time, hunched over, ready to fall to the mat…there is no “Magic Mike” here.
These are transformed actors eating at their roles at the bit. But this is Carell’s film…staying in Howard Hughes one-note turned symphonic performance as a man who is emotionally and sexually stunted like some weird little rich kid up on the hill. His surprising performance (who cast him?) translates to career changer.