'Foxcatcher' looks at an odd intersection of wealth, sports and crime

John Eleuthère du Pont was a published ornithologist, a prominent philatelist, a student of conchology (the study of mollusks), a philanthropist, a supporter of amateur athletics and, not coincidentally, one of the wealthiest men in the United States.

But when he died in 2010, the obit writers all agreed about his most prominent "accomplishment."

"Foxcatcher," which opens Friday in Manhattan, is director Bennett Miller's new drama starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, and also was the name du Pont gave his family home near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. It's there that Miller sets the strange chronicle of du Pont's involvement with two Olympic wrestlers, brothers Dave and Mark Schultz and a crime of demented tragedy. Miller ("Capote," "Moneyball") said one of the mysteries is why the case wasn't more sensationalized when Dave Schultz was murdered back in 1996 -- but also means the plotline of his movie will be a revelation to most audiences.

"It was just a flash," Miller said last weekend from Philadelphia, where the film was being screened. "It was a hot story for a couple of days and then disappeared. Here in Philly they know all about it, but west of the Mississippi, almost no one knows about it. And almost everyone who knows anything about it knows almost nothing about it."

The complexities of "Foxcatcher" involve class, manhood, patriarchy, cocaine, rah-rah Americanism, moral corruption and privilege. Du Pont grew up in the lap of luxury and, as portrayed by Carell, is a man who greets every obstacle with a look of bewilderment; he can't quite believe things aren't going his way.

At the beginning of "Foxcatcher," Mark Schultz (Tatum), a gold medalist at the '84 Olympics in Los Angeles, is reduced to giving halfhearted motivational speeches to apathetic teenagers for $20 a pop, which he then blows on fast food. Mark's brother Dave (Ruffalo), his older, married, much more together mentor, is coaching for a living. Mark is languishing until a call from du Pont changes his life: He wants Mark to coach Team USA, restore American greatness, win more Olympic gold and, along the way, make du Pont an icon of sports philanthropy.

The real-life dynamic between the two men was what hooked Miller.

SEE PHOTOSHere's what's On Demand right now

"I was deeply and immediately fascinated by the relationship," he said. "I wanted to know what it was about -- one of the wealthiest men in America and a wrestler. I couldn't leave it alone. There's something about it that really tickled me. It made me laugh. And question why I was laughing. I mean, it could have been a comedy if wasn't so tragic."

Much of the movie's impact is conveyed via what is not said, and the way the lead actors physically inhabit their characters, both moving through the film like wounded animals.

"Channing was able to study Mark Schultz off videos and by spending time with him, and a lot of it simply is there in the behavior," Miller said. "The same with Carell, with the videotapes. They're communicating what they understand to be the damages that were inflicted on these two characters' psyches, and how it affects them physically."

The media response to "Foxcatcher" will invariably include delirious observations about what a serious actor Carell is, even though he's proved it numerous times. Miller saw something else as well.

SEE PHOTOSNow's the time to catch up on Netflix. Here's what's new.

"There is a benign-ness in quite a bit of what Steve has done," he said. "So you don't expect this character to do what this character does. Which was also true of the real John du Pont. No one expected him to do what he did. But whoever was cast in the role was not going to project the kind of character we'd associate with the behavior that follows. The whole thing makes a kinky kind of sense to me."

Miller began working on the film in 2006, and "it took a long time because we started from scratch -- all we had was newspaper stories and a contact for Mark Schultz." There was research to do, a script to develop, and, of course, money to raise, the last of which turned out to be more of a problem than the director anticipated.

"This was the first thing I set out to do after 'Capote,'" he said of the Oscar-winning (for Philip Seymour Hoffman) 2005 film, "and because 'Capote' was well received, I was under the illusion that this would be possible. I stuck with it beyond the point where most people would have realized it wasn't going to happen. And eventually I had to concede that it wasn't going to happen. And I put it down and did 'Moneyball.'"

Eventually, of course, it did happen, and now "Foxcatcher" is on everyone's list of end-of-year movies to watch. "Somebody said to me recently, 'Oh, it's like your other movies,'" Miller said. "I said, 'What do you mean?' and he said, 'You have characters in worlds where they do not belong.' I said, 'I guess so.'

"In this case, you have guys who are in worlds where they do not belong, and they are trying to belong to each other's worlds. And they are trying to convince themselves that this makes sense in the face of every indication that it's not a good thing. And, in fact, that it's a potentially dangerous thing."

DEEP PERFORMANCES FROM A SERIOUSLY FUNNY ACTOR

"Foxcatcher" might well change things, but Steve Carell is still best known for comedy -- as a regular on "The Daily Show" and "The Office," as part of the "Anchorman" team and as the star of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Despicable Me," to name a few. But there are several more serious performances in his filmography, which always seem to prompt people to say, "Hey, the guy can act."

Here are a few:

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006) Carell was surrounded by a top-notch cast (Alan Arkin, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin) in this social critique/road movie about a little girl and her Albuquerque family's odyssey to a beauty pageant in California. Carell, as suicidal gay Proust scholar Frank Ginsberg, displayed previously undetected subtlety.

STORIES USA (2007) This omnibus of six shorts about desperate lives in America was directed by seven different directors and is most notable for its cast -- not just Carell, but James Gandolfini, Josh Hartnett, Scott Caan, Paul Walker and even Paris Hilton. In Carell's segment, "Street of Pain," he plays a man seeking revenge for a childhood dodgeball incident. Approach with caution.

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE (2011) Ostensibly a comedy, this movie is both crazy and, at times, stupid, but Carell's Cal Weaver -- cuckolded by his wife (Julianne Moore) and given basic training in bar pickups by his new pal Jacob (Ryan Gosling) -- is a far more nuanced character than one would ever expect. Careering from hopelessly pathetic to romantically heroic, Carell helps make much of the going very worthwhile.

HOPE SPRINGS (2012) When a long-wed but unhappy couple (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones) seek out professional help, their understanding marriage counselor turns out to be Carell, who plays his character with graceful understatement.

THE WAY WAY BACK (2013) Carell really makes you hate him as Trent, nasty boyfriend of Pam (Toni Collette) and plague of her sensitive son, Duncan (Liam James), in this underappreciated coming-of-age story by writer-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.