The Royal
Tenenbaums
(2001)
Directed by: Wes
Anderson
Written
by: Wes Anderson and Owen C. Wilson
Produced by: Wes
Anderson, Barry Mendel, Scott Rudin
Executive Producers: Rudd
Simmons and Owen C. Wilson
Many people doubtlessly
consider The Royal Tenenbaums to be an inflation rather than a
continuation of Anderson's concerns. On the surface, this is his
grandest movie -- the setting is a timeless version of greater New York
(as opposed to a timeless version of greater Houston), there are
Beatles songs on the soundtrack, big-name actors and one mega-star in
the cast. And it's true that it's longer on high-flown comic inventions
(Owen Wilson's J. Peterman-ish novelist Eli Cash, the outlandish
worldwide wanderings of Paltrow's Margot), and shorter on the kind of
detail worked that endeared Rushmore to its fans, like the brief yet
indelible shot of Margaret Yang (Sara Tanaka) delicately craning her
neck at the science fair, or the barely glimpsed name in the printed
handwriting on Max's Latin reinstatement petition: "Thayer." But this
is another film with another set of concerns, about another kind of
sadness: the longing to "restore" the family that was never happy in
the first place to a glory that never was. It's funny that the
newspaper of record would hone in on the fact that none of the
Tenenbaums appear to be part of the same family, and single it out as a
fault. Because that's pretty much the point: a sympathetic yet
inattentive matriarch, a long-gone father who hides behind layers of
guff and nonsense from old western novels to protect himself from
intimacy ("Look at that old black buck," he says of Glover's
beyond-elegant suitor), and three children with nothing but their own
talent for company, each building their own genius stricken identity
(Stiller's the "preternaturally" talented financial whiz kid, Paltrow's
the playwright, Luke Wilson's the tennis star) in sad efforts to define
themselves outside of their unfathomable yet inescapable family.
The
film proudly wears its inspiration on its sleeve: Welles's The
Magnificent Ambersons, Salinger's Glass family stories, the old New
Yorker of Ross and Shawn, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E.
Frankweiler, the Velvet Underground, a tinge of Fitzgerald, a dash of
Philip Barry. But it speaks on its own singular voice: at once tender
and probing, mindful of New York and its special mixture of grit and
glory but confident enough to mold it into a big, faded magical
playhouse, a limitless extension of the Tenenbaum family's private
universe. The spectacle of father and children contriving to return
home and make amends ("Why does he get to do that? says the childishly
disappointed Margot when Etheline tells her that Stiller's Chas is
moving back into the house) deepens with each new viewing -- in
hilarity (Royal and Chas's screaming match inside the games closet,
Royal's outlaw excursions with his grandsons, to whom he offers the
following condolence for the accidental death of their mother: "I'm
sorry for your loss--your mother was a extremely [note: actually --
terribly] attractive woman." ), pathos (Richie and Margot's secret
tryst in his tent as they listen to "She Smiled Sweetly" and "Ruby
Tuesday" [corrected by editor] on an old record player, every
interaction between Etheline and Glover's Henry, Royal taking Margot
out for ice cream over the melancholy strains of Vince Guaraldi's
immortal Charlie Brown Christmas theme), and sheer delight (Owen
Wilson's Eli quietly bugging out on national television). The word
epiphany gets thrown around a lot, but it should be reserved for
moments like the flight of Richie's falcon over the New York City
skyline, represented the lost glory of the Tenenbaums; Margot's
slow-motion approach to Richie to the tune of Nico's evanescent "These
Days": protected by her ever-present fur coat and striped cotton dress,
her eyes shrouded in mascara, her hair pushed back with a barrette like
a 12-year-old's, her mouth creased in an adolescent half-smile, you get
both the current of feeling between Margot and Richie and the absurdity
of their damaged personae as well. Or the moment near the end of the
film when Stiller's Chas, a mountain of hyper-up, burning anger in a
red tracksuit throughout the movie, suddenly switched emotional gears
for a moment of final parting. I've never seen moments like these in
any other movie.
Credit:
Kent Jones, Film Comment |
The Royal Tenenbaums
soundtrack
|
