by Wes Anderson, 2001.
Starring: Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Kumar Pallana, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson.
Rating: 9/10, 9/10.
2001 was a good year for small, quirky comedies. There was Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Ghost World, and Amélie. Quirkiest, and maybe best (quirky comedically, that is), though, was The Royal Tenenbaums, the latest film from Wes Anderson, who earlier made the quirky Bottle Rocket and Rushmore.
When Rushmore came out, everyone said it was the single best thing ever and got all obsessed. When The Royal Tenenbaums came out, everyone did the same thing, all the while saying it was nowhere near as good as Rushmore had been. They lie. Rushmore was funny, sure, but it left me kind of unsatisfied; was this what everyone was raving about? I was afraid The Royal Tenenbaums would do the same, but oh no. This time the movie was better than everyone said.
Normally I give at least a brief summary of the plot of the movies I review, but that is utterly impossible here. There was no plot. Events are set in motion by a father (Hackman) trying to reconcile himself with his family for his own selfish (and possibly worse than that) reasons, but that doesn’t really say much. It’s more like Anderson and Owen—or maybe Luke, but I think Owen—Wilson, who co-wrote the film, described what they wanted out of each character to the actors portraying them, and let them run free. And it’s glorious. Each of the actors is so talented and so into the role, and seems to be having so much pure fun playing the character, that I’m just so happy that they all decided to go into acting, and that they made it. My favorites were Gwyneth Paltrow, as the adopted Tenenbaum daughter who lost a finger while running away, has been smoking in secret for decades, and wears the best eye makeup ever, and Anjelica Huston, in perhaps the subtlest role, as the family’s warm, genuine matriarch who unexpectedly finds herself in love with her accountant (Glover).
This film reinforces my opinion that, a lot of the time, plot just gets in the way of telling a good story. If the screenplay had enforced a stronger plot on these characters, rather then just letting them interact freely, all the charm and wonder of the film would have been lost. As it is, we get a brief glimpse into the eccentric, otherworldly lives of the most fascinating family I have ever had the privilege of experiencing.
A brief word about the music is needed. It is perfect, and very present. In Rushmore, the music was all British invasion, mod type stuff—Kinks and so forth. Here, it’s all very foggy weather, wistful, low key music from the likes of Nico, Nick Drake, Velvet Underground, that sort. Even when the specific choices are a little confusing—why early in the movie we hear an instrumental of the Peanuts Christmas song, and later on hear the regular version, when neither Peanuts nor Christmas have anything to do with the movie I don’t know—the mood created is always spot-on. When Stephanie Says by Velvet Underground started playing near the end, my goddamn heart broke and I haven’t been able to fix it yet. Funny that I’d be saying that of a comedy, but it’s true.