Rushmore
Max speaks with a disquieting maturity and obvious superiority complex - he's a smart kid who knows that they way to get things done is to do them, and can't be bothered with authority or bureaucracy. When he's told by the schoolmaster that his time at Rushmore will be cut short if he doesn't bring up his grades, Max says he's willing to put in a fifth postgraduate year. "We don't offer a fifth year," says the schoolmaster. "Well," says Max with ill-concealed condescension, "we don't yet."
Max schoolwork suffers further because he falls in love with a first grade teacher at Rushmore, and begins to focus all his disturbing energies on winning her hand: he befriends a steel tycoon named Herman Blume and solicits money for a massive aquarium he want to build to impress her. For this first hour of the film, Rushmore is perfect: fresh, original, and funny as hell. (Max's bizarre production of Serpico had me in stitches.) As Max, Jason Schwartzmann is flawless as the overly bright and driven outsider. But it's Bill Murray who really commands your attention.
Blume befriends Max because he sees himself in the young opportunist. He hates his own life - married to a cheating wife and father of two Neanderthal sons, he wears expensive suits uncomfortably, smokes too much, and eventually falls in love with the object of Max's affection. Murray is understated and brilliant in this role, stealing every scene he is in. He paints Blume with details that project his self-loathing; when the pretty schoolteacher asks his name, he hesitates and blurts it out like an apology. He's also frequently hilarious when dealing with the sons that he hates. With only a minor role, he generates the biggest laughs and surprisingly deep moments of pathos.
When Max finds out that Blume is dating his love interest, he freaks out and the film begins to slip a bit. The revenge he wreaks on Blume (and the retaliation from a man who isn't above a little payback on a fifteen-year-old) is funny and uncomfortably dark by turns. After the effortless first hour, Rushmore seems to be confused in its tone for a time, torn between a wonderfully offbeat comedy and a wonderfully offbeat character study. The elements work alone, but are a bit strange when mixed together.
While not perfect, this is a unique and unusual film, well worth seeing - it feels like an indie film with a bigger budget. With Murray's tour-de-force performance and sensitive direction which allows the audience to fill in the emotional histories of the characters instead of rubbing them in your face, Rushmore engages and rewards those looking for something different.
Special note goes to the soundtrack. Rushmore has some of the most intelligent use of music I've ever seen (or heard) in a film, with obscure British Invasion tracks from the Rolling Stones, The Who and The Faces adding a vital tone to the film. It's classic rock without the familiar tired feel of classic rock, and captures Max's reckless energy.
Best of all is the Kinks' "Nothing in This World Can Stop Me Worrin' Bout That Girl." A melancholy acoustic blues, it adds a layer of despair to a scene in which Blume, seeing his wife flirting with another man at his son's birthday party, polishes off a tumbler of scotch and cannonballs into a leaf-encrusted pool in what may be a halfhearted attempt at suicide, or at least an effort to hide from his pain. It's a brilliant scene, comic and tragic, and the song underscores it perfectly.
- Jared O'Connor
MOVIES
All Content © 1997, 1998, 1999 Jared O'Connor and Michael Baker