62. The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson, 2001

"Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is. . . maybe he didn't."

I love Wes Anderson. He is easily the most original young director to show up in a long time and I am certain that he is going to become one of my all time favorites. So far, Anderson has directed four movies: Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I love everyone of them, but, while another of these four will appear on the list shortly, Tenenbaums is the one we're discussing today. Part of the reason I like this particular movie so much is that it is the first film to really indulge completely in Anderson's auterist qualities vis a vis production design, a unique design which existed in the margins of Rushmore, but which comes out full force here and works beautifully with Tenebaum's plot. It is a difficult thing to explain and one that I have spent a lot of time thinking about; so I ask that you indulge me as I try to explain. Among other things, Tenenbaums is a film about a family, the Tenenbaums, naturally, that was once rich and famous, but which isn't anymore. They continue to exist in a world surrounded by the faded trappings of that notorious past, living in a massive house with once beautiful wallpaper, furniture, trim, etc. which is now sadly faded and well out of date. The Tenenbaums themselves live lives similar to their home and possessions. They are a family of the once famous: an adopted daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tenenbaum, who was once a gifted playwright, but now shares a hollow relationship with a man she doesn't love, ironically a psychiatrist, played by Bill Murray, a son, Ben Stiller as Chas, who was once a sort of business prodigy and inventor of a new species of mice and a successful family man, now racked with self doubt and despair following the death of his wife (both of which he attempts to compensate for with a ridiculous series of fire drills and the like involving his own two children), and a second son, Luke Wilson as Richie, a former tennis pro who now avoids his family because of his unspoken love for Margot.

All of this sounds like the ingredients for a tragic movie, particularly when you add in Gene Hackman's brilliant work as ostracized family patriarch Royal Tenenbaum, once the proud head of the family, now reduced to a series of ridiculous pleas for his family's attention. Still, Tenenbaums is rarely all that tragic. True, when we meet the family, they have a great deal of growing to do if they are to find happiness, but this is a film that is much more joyous than tragic. It is a story of a family's return to greatness, at least on a personal, emotional level, not their decline. Further, while the film revels in its sort of second hand version of the well to do appearance, the Tenenbaums themselves are not overly self conscious of their fate. They know that they have outlived past glories, but they do not lament it. This is not Sunset Boulevard. The characters do not waste tears over their fading home or past accomplishments. They and Wes Anderson are not interested in those glories or restoring them; they are interested in their interpersonal/familial decline and in repairing that. It is this interest in each other more so than in themselves that gives this movie a very unique identity and avoids a tragedy that we have seen before.

This emphasis on the personal also allows the film to indulge it's characters many quirks, like Margot's wooden finger and secret smoking habit or Richie's insistence on sleeping in a tent inside the house. It also allows the film to be comedic. Now, Tenenbaums is most often referred to as a comedy and I do think it's very, very funny, but it also deals extensively with the themes I've mentioned above. It is no slapstick or screwball movie and it certainly isn't the sort of frat boy comedy so popular today. Instead, and I'm loath to borrow an analogy from Shreck here, but whatever, it is kind of an onion of a film in that it really does have so many layers. If we are going to call it a comedy, and perhaps we may as well, I think that we also need to call it one of the smartest, most emotionally satisfying comedies to come around in a long time. That said, I do think this movie is damn funny. I love how odd the characters are and how odd the production design is. I love just about every line to come out of Gene Hackman's mouth as, time and again, Royal simply doesn't get it, as when a young Margot asks her father what he thought of the characters in her latest play, Royal: What characters? There's a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes. Margot: Good night, everyone. Royal: Well, sweetie, don't get mad at me. That's just one man's opinion. I love Royal's man servant, Pagoda, a former assassin who once stabbed Royal with a shiv and then carried him to a hospital. I love it when Pagoda gets fired and stabs Royal again. I love Owen Wilson as Eli, the Tenebaum's family friend, currently experiencing fame of his own for a series of weird historical fiction books. I love the image of Eli snorting coke with his author friends in front of a big painting of old West style Indians riding ATVs. I love Bill Murray and the weird kid he's studying. I love Alec Baldwin's narration. I love Ben Stiller's paranoia and Luke Wilson's falconing. Most of all, I love the epithet that Royal wants for his tomb stone. It's the same one I'd like to have, "Died tragically rescuing his family from the remains of a destroyed sinking battleship."