Cast: Gene Hackman, Angelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke
Wilson, Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Bill Murray

Director: Wes Anderson

Screenplay: Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson

Running time: 1 hr 45 mins

Genre: Comedy/Drama



CRITIQUE:

The genre of dysfunctional family drama-cum-comedy is a breed that is consistently expanding. It’s usually because almost everyone can relate to a domestic fracas of any form. To Wes Anderson’s cinematic language, dysfunctional means the weirder his characters are, the more fascinating they can be. In THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, we get all sorts of eccentric personas, who have eccentric habits, and all exist in eccentric circumstances. Yet no matter how trippy this film can get, jettisoned with odd and loony situations, the talent of Anderson is that he never misses the heartbeat of his characters. That in spite of the intricacy and absurdity of this certain Tenenbaum family, there’s something very moving and human in its key players. And although the laughable sequences sparkle, it’s really in its quietest of moments that makes the film shine.


This is a too bizarre family to relate to: Royal Tenenbaum (a wonderful Gene Hackman) is blamed for his three children’s fall from grace, once child prodigies, now damaged, insubordinate adults. Chas (Ben Stiller) loses his wife and adopts an obsessive-compulsive complex on the safety of his two boys; Richie (Luke Wilson) smashes a tennis career and goes sailing in some distant oceans; and Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), a successful playwright turned bed-hopper turned chain-smoker. The mother is an archaeologist (Angelica Huston), who falls in love with a colleague (Danny Glover). It’s a film embroidered with tons of details, from its characters, and even from its narration, which serves a commentary companion to the family. Nevertheless, it’s all made absurdly rich and engrossingly human. There’s a wounded soul beneath Paltrow’s eyeliner-smeared eyes; or a thwarted, unconsummated love within the sad looks of Luke Wilson; or an overprotecting father in Ben Stiller’s Chas; and even a sincere truthfulness in Hackman’s Pop when he decides to atone.


Like its storyline, Anderson matches his quirky dialogues (one-liners are plentiful, thanks to the writing pair of Anderson and Owen Wilson) with his visual tactics, using chapter titles as his device in editing. His camera always moves in careful measurement, and he shoots his New York in an almost dreamy sepia-glow and adorns his characters with strong, retro-themed clothing, making them stand out. And like most good family dysfunctional dramas, it finds humour in the darkest of matters. Take the conclusion for example, read the epitaph on the tombstone carefully – it’s an impact that will make you both laugh and cry. There’s a very, very sad and lonely portrait of family in here, but it reminds us that our dysfunctions are what makes us human, and also what makes us laugh and smile despite of it all.



VERDICT:

A wacky, absurd dysfunctional family dramedy that has some dark, depressing matters streaming underneath, but tackled by Wes Anderson with such a lighthearted, quirky charm that never misses a heartbeat.



RATING: A-