Channing Tatum doesn’t say much during the first twenty minutes or so of Foxcatcher. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t say much throughout most of the film. We first meet him as Mark Schultz, a wrestler training and hulking around the ring, fit, disciplined, and physically domineering. We then see him in a car that looks too small for him, in front of a room of elementary school children, awkwardly speaking about his Olympic triumph, dwarfing the small children. The first time we see him have a meaningful interaction with another human being is when his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) enters the picture. Even then, their meaningful interaction is not a verbal conversation but a session in the ring stretching, warming up, and sparring with a palpable intimacy and athletic intensity. Even when Mark meets John du Pont (Steve Carell) the meeting that jump starts the main spine of the narrative, John does most of the talking. Tatum’s Mark appears uncomfortable in the world outside of the ring and a poor fit for it at that. His actual presence seems out of place outside of the strictures of his sport.

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