profoundly silly, and loving
Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums" exists on a knife edge between comedy and sadness. There are big laughs, and then quiet moments when we're touched. Sometimes we grin at the movie's deadpan audacity. The film doesn't want us to feel just one set of emotions. It's the story of a family who at times could have been created by P.G. Wodehouse, and at other times by John Irving. And it's proof that Anderson and his writing partner, the actor Owen Wilson, have a gift of cockeyed genius.
The Tenenbaums occupy a big house in a kind of dreamy New York. It has enough rooms for each to hide and nurture a personality incompatible with the others. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), the patriarch, left home abruptly some years before and has been living in a hotel, on credit, ever since. There was never actually a divorce. His wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) remains at home with their three children, who were all child prodigies and have grown into adult neurotics. There's Chas (Ben...
Wes Anderson will always be hit or miss...
... but not in the sense that is usually used. Some people absolutly love his movies, while others really don't care much at all. It's not to say that either side is right or wrong, its just a conflict of interests. Those who don't like Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, or this film, are not in any way inferior/superior to a person like myself, but, those who are smug and almost happy to tell you how bad this movie is... shame on you.
Well, this is easily my favourite film of last year, along with Memento and Waking Life, because of it's rich use of atmosphere. This is a film about lost time, lost childhood, lost chances... really it's about losing those things which are important, and getting them back, and that is the reason that alot of the imagery is, umm.... retro. This is a running theme in all of Anderson's movies, the idea of reclaiming your past by bringing it along with you into the future. All the objects in the movie hold sentimental value to the characters (we never really...
A big, dark toy-box of a movie
I'm a Wes Anderson fan and "The Royal Tenenbaums" was my favorite movie of the year.
(just for a reference, the others were "Hedwig & the Angry Inch," "Ali," "The Man Who Wasn't There," and "Training Day," and Ken Burns "Jazz" and "The Sopranos: Season 3," both of which may have been on TV but are of a scope and caliber far beyond most multiplex efforts)
But "The Royal Tenenbaums" took me a while. It took me two viewings to fully appreciate the "Tenenbaums," and a third to convince me I loved it.
This is a rich movie, full of detail that initially moved too fast for me to absorb. It was only after I was able to watch the film without wondering where it was going and what was going to happen that I was able to sit back and fully appreciate it. There's a lot of quirkiness here, and that gives the whole thing a feeling of insincerity, but this is not an insincere film.
Many critics have pointed out that this movie is like a lot of other things; they mention Dickens, John...
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