I really need to put
a statute of limitations on my top 10 list for any given year. Just when
I thought I had 2001 figured out - and I mean totally figured out - I
see another movie and have to bump some truly excellent film from my list
to make way. Casualties of this include David Mamet's caper film Heist,
Cameron Crowe's psycho-thriller Vanilla Sky, and, most recently, the French suspense film With a Friend Like Harry... The loss on the Gallic front
was due to a screening I took in of Wes Anderson's storybook fable of
dysfunction, The Royal Tenenbaums.
Usually, when families
have multiple children, you expect some to excel and others to disappoint.
In the case of the Tenenbaums, all three of the kids end up doing both.
Growing up, they were something to marvel about, genius celebrities. Chas
was a financial wizard who was crunching international commerce figures
in his preteens. Richie was a champion tennis player from grade school.
And adopted Margot wrote plays - winning a major grant in junior high.
All of this would be interesting on its own, but throw in the wild card
of their father, Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), a caustic individual
who is wholly self-centered, quick to criticize, and with very little
good to offer to anybody. Naturally, his wife, Etheline (Angelica Huston),
kicks him out in a short time. The children go through their adolescence
with constantly decreasing contact with their dad.
Flash forward to their
present: Chas (Ben Stiller) is a bitter widower who is raising his two
sons in his own image. Margot (Gwenyth Paltrow) hasn't written in years,
married to a much older man (Bill Murray). She spends hours in the bathroom
each day, smoking (a habit no one has become wise to, even though she's
been doing it since she was 12). Richie (Luke Wilson) is retired, having
blown his last match, and secretly pines for his adopted sister. And Etheline
is being courted by her accountant (Danny Glover).
Royal turns up at
her doorstop and announces that he has cancer and about six weeks to live.
Slowly, all of the Tenenbaum children return to their original roost,
although not all for the same reasons. Richie, who was always his father's
favorite, welcomes his dad back with open arms. Margot seems ambivalent
about it. Chas, however, is least pleased with his father's sudden reappearance
in his life, and is very clear about this point. Slowly, and surely, the
dysfunction rife in this family explodes in all of their faces.
I usually don't like
spending that much time on the plot, but it's really necessary in this
case. Wes Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson create such a detailed account
that it's really difficult to synopsize it without going into intense
detail.
What's really unusual
about the film is how it's told. It unfolds in the manner of a young adult
fiction novel, you know, the ones with the larger than necessary font
and the little illustrations that mark the start of every chapter. However,
this is not only a clever way of presenting the narrative. It also invades
the look of the film. Just about every five minutes, I noted that a certain
shot would look great as a book illustration. The colors are always very
basic. I like it when films have a uniform feel to them, and even moreso
when that feel is unique. The Royal Tenenbaums succeeds admirably on both
accounts.
Out of such a large
cast, Gene Hackman is easily the best (of course, name me a movie that
doesn't benefit slightly from his presence). His Royal is utterly despicable,
not to mention a self-described "asshole". However, there's
also some heart hidden under his conniving exterior, a heart that becomes
more and more apparent as the narrative progresses. Paltrow and Stiller
both do excellent work - especially Stiller, as a man who is looking desperately
not to be his own father. Luke Wilson is a little bland, unfortunately,
but part of that can be written off as the nature of the character.
Unfortunately, a big-name
ensemble cast like this leads to some performances being swept under the
rug for the sake of the pacing. The chief victim is Bill Murray. I just
knew there was a great acting job going on there, but I didn't have enough
time to confirm it. On the opposite end of this spectrum is Owen Wilson
(as a successful childhood friend who's just a bit zonked out) whose likable
nature but limited talent is given way too much play.
The very basics of
the plot are derived from the standard Hollywood "dramedy" formula
- probably the biggest flaw of The Royal Tenenbaums. However, this is
successfully hidden under a barrage of quirks, knockout performances,
and killer direction. A few moments betray the convential skeleton - Etheline's
reaction to Royal's condition doesn't ring true at all and everything
about Chas after a certain point late in the film is convoluted. Otherwise,
the script is quite excellent.
I really enjoyed this
film. It had quite the charm to it, and now I'm equally interested in
Anderson's previous films Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. Those will have
to wait for a bit, though. I might have to catch The Royal Tenenbaums
again. |
