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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
profoundly silly, and loving, March 28, 2005
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 Stiller), who was a financial whiz as a kid; Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), who was adopted, and won a big prize for writing a school play, and Richie (Luke Wilson), once a tennis champion.
All three come with various partners, children and friends. The most memorable are Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray), a bearded intellectual who has been married to Margot for years but does not begin to know her; Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), who lived across the street, became like a member of the family, and writes best-selling Westerns that get terrible reviews; Henry Sherman (Danny Glover), who was Etheline's accountant for 10 years until they suddenly realized they were in love, and such satellites as Pagoda (Kumar Pallana), Royal's faithful servant (who once in India tried to murder Royal and then rescued him from ... himself ...) and the bellboy Dusty (Seymour Cassel), who impersonates a doctor when Royal fakes a fatal illness.
Trying to understand the way this flywheel comedy tugs at the heartstrings, I reflected that eccentricity often masks deep loneliness. All the Tenenbaums are islands entire of themselves. Consider that Margot has been a secret smoker since she was 12. Why bother? Nobody else in the family cares, and when they discover her deception they hardly notice. Her secrecy was part of her own strategy to stand outside the family, to have something that was her own.
One of the pleasures of the movie is the way it keeps us a little uncertain about how we should be reacting. It's like a guy who seems to be putting you on, and then suddenly reveals himself as sincere, so you're stranded out there with an inappropriate smirk. You can see this quality on screen in a lot of Owen Wilson's roles--in the half-kidding, half-serious way he finds out just how far he can push people.
The movie's strategy of doubling back on its own emotions works mostly through the dialogue. Consider a sort of brilliant dinner-table conversation where Royal tells the family he has cancer, they clearly don't believe him (or care), he says he wants to get to know them before he dies, the bitter Chas says he's not interested in that, and Royal pulls out all the stops by suggesting they visit their grandmother. Now watch how it works. Chas and Richie haven't seen her since they were 6. Margot says piteously that she has never met her. Royal responds not with sympathy but with a slap at her adopted status: "She wasn't your real grandmother." See how his appeal turns on a dime into a cruel put-down? Anderson's previous movies were "Bottle Rocket" (1996) and "Rushmore" (1998), both offbeat comedies, both about young people trying to outwit institutions. Anderson and the Wilson brothers met at the University of Texas, made their first film on a shoestring, have quickly developed careers, and share a special talent. (That Owen Wilson could co-write and star in this, and also star in the lugubrious "Behind Enemy Lines," is one of the year's curiosities.) Like the Farrelly brothers, but kinder and gentler, they follow a logical action to its outrageous conclusion.
Consider, for example, what happens after Royal gets bounced out of his latest hotel and moves back home. His wife doesn't want him and Chas despises him (for stealing from his safety deposit box), so Royal stealthily moves in with a hospital bed, intravenous tubes, private medical care, and Seymour Cassel shaking his head over the prognosis. When this strategy is unmasked, he announces he wants to get to know his grandkids better--wants to teach them to take chances. So he instructs Chas' kids in shoplifting, playing in traffic and throwing things at taxicabs.
"The Royal Tenenbaums" is at heart profoundly silly, and loving. That's why it made me think of Wodehouse. It stands in amazement as the Tenenbaums and their extended family unveil one strategy after another to get attention, carve out space, and find love. It doesn't mock their efforts, dysfunctional as they are, because it understands them--and sympathizes.
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wes Anderson will always be hit or miss..., May 2, 2002
... 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 learn what the particular sentiments are, which is part of the allure of the "sight gag") and gives the characters a past and, more importantly, a neural net of their opinions, beliefs, emotions etc, just by displaying their possessions. The performances are usually critisized as being highly exagerated- well i hate to break it to you but that's really the whole point of the movie. The Tenenbaum family are eccentrics, the type of family you would latch onto like a satilite because you are attracted to their behavour, and Owen Anderson's character is a representation of the audience in that respect. If this family was what you would call "average", they wouldn't be interesting. Of course alot of movies have the set up of a normal guy in an extraordinary situation, but not every movie has to be that way. Some of the reviewers who have given this movie a low score have cited that it "fails as black comedy". Well that's interesting since Anderson himself dosn't consider his movies comedies anyways. Sure there are funny moments, but they are by no means as exagerated as the film's characters are. The comedy is understated: there are no cheap tricks to make you laugh. One of my favourite moments in the movie is when Royal and the indian "butler" are in the game closet talking, and then it's revealed they are drinking martinis- dosn't sound funny in words, but for me it's very touching and highly comical. This isn't slapstick, but humour of a more gentle kind, like in Monsiur Hulots Holliday. The acting is superb by Hackman and Houston, and immediatly convinces the audience of their characters histories. I feel this was Hackman's finest performance since The Conversation, in a career which, i feel as well, has been utterly underappreciated. Luke Wilson, Gwenneth Paltro are both fine in their own rights, and Ben Stiller -who practicly everyone hates in this movie- plays his character wonderfully: A boy who breeded mice with spots and ran a lucrative company at the age of 12, a father who is frightend of losing his children to accidents and hates his own father for reasons he can't articulate- Stiller personifies this beautifully. All the negative reviewers seem to have forgotten that for all their critisism, they "bought" them all as a family, as unrealisticly exagerated as they are, even though in real life they are all polar opposites. Bad acting?? These people have no idea of the subtleties involved in the performances. I also think that Bill Murray's performance as the psychologist is brilliant. Danny Glover plays his part with just the right amount of understatement, and equally fitting with the other actors. Alec Baldwin's dry narative is extra extra dry. This movie just cries for a repeated viewing after repeated viewing, and has similarities to Joyce's Ulysses in the sense that there are treasures hidden within- seek and ye shall find.
If only you appreciate the beauty of the colours, this movie is worth the money to watch it, and i applaud Hollywood for forgetting its loyalties to the sausage industry for just a few brief moments. Damn the academy, this is the best picture of the year.
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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In Defense of "Tenenbaum" - Comedy doesn't always = laughs, February 1, 2002
After viewing the film "The Royal Tenenbaums" I left the theater in an odd state of mind. And after digesting the film a little while, something one MUST do after watching a Wes Anderson/Owen Wilson film, I've concluded it as the best comedy of the year and one of the top five films of the year (and the same thing happend when I viewed the film "Rushmore" a few years earlier). Then I decided to check what other people thought of the film and came onto Amazon.com to read people's reviews. I was very distraught with what I read, not so much because people disliked the film (some people, I should not lump ALL people in this category; there are SOME innovative filmgoers amongst you all) but because of why they didn't. People complained that there were no laughs to be had. Granted, there are not belly laughs and guffaws to be had at "Tenenbaums," but this should be expected considering how "Rushmore" was set up and executed. Wes Anderson and his writing partner do not go for the cheap laughs and the slapstick sight gags that make so many current movies the cheap, raunch fare that they are. Being a writer myself I've come to realize that there is much more to comedy than making a person jiggle with laughter. In fact, no where in the definition of the term "comedy" is the word "laugh" used. Comedy deals with a general feeling it bestows upon an audience member. One of humor and affection (be it dark or otherwise). Anyway, to get back to the point, "The Royal Tenenbaums" is solely structured on giving off a feeling of comedy while also playing for more psychological and emotional connections with it's audience. I will openly admit I laughed outloud less than ten times throughout the film (although when I did laugh, it was very well deserved). I did, however, have a smile on my face throughout the ENTIRE thing. And that's what comedy, at least one designed like this one, is meant to do. I commend Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson for making such a remarkably structured film and reccommend it to anyone who has the desire to see the "Thinking Man's Comedy."
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