Are You With Us?:
The Royal Tenenbaums
By Ryan Mazie
September 9, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Although dry humor is subjective and I find it very hit-or-miss, Anderson hits every mark head-on as he satirizes the traditional American family through the dysfunctional Tenenbaums. Separated yet never divorced, Royal Tenenbaum (the wonderful Hackman), a disbarred attorney, has long been exiled from his impressive family mansion to an ultra-luxury hotel suite. Not having the right knack for words, his wife Etheline (Huston), an archeologist, takes care of their three overachieving genius children - who are not really children at all. Chas (Ben Stiller) is a financial expert, Richie (Luke Wilson) is a tennis Olympian, and the adopted Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a playwright prodigy. Cut to 22 years later and the Tenenbaums are only a mirror of their former selves. Chas lost his wife in a plane accident and is an overbearing safety nut to his two children. Richie, who cracked under pressure at a tennis tournament, now lives on a boat traveling the world. Margot married Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray spoofing Freud) and is in a serious state of depression, having not written a play in years. But when the financially and internally troubled Royal picks up on the information that his wife has been proposed to by her accountant (Danny Glover), he tries to make amends as the family through circumstance is all under the same roof once again.
With such rich and absorbing characters, I was about to hop onto Amazon to order the novel it was adapted from. Only thing is that there was no book to begin with. In a novel idea (pun intended), Wes Anderson formatted the film like a book with frequent cuts to pages showing the chapter and even some text about the upcoming scene for those who like pausing their DVD players. Much of the dialogue is spoken through voice-over by a mysterious regal-voiced narrator (Alec Baldwin). This technique helps set-up a scene in only seconds and gives dense background information on the quirky characters.
Anderson, for my money, is one of today’s most unconventional and un-disappointing filmmakers. He once said, “I want to try not to repeat myself. But then I seem to do it continuously in my films. It's not something I make any effort to do. I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience.” However, Anderson’s work always seems insightful and worth multiple viewings to spot the hidden context. The self-referential nature of his films makes them all that much better to dissect. Much like Frank Capra, where Anderson repeats himself is in tone. Anderson's movies always have internally tormented characters miserably set in happy bright exterior surfaces. Just watch, for instance, the scene where the chain-smoking Margot with her black as coal eyeliner soaks in a pearly white bubbly bathtub.
Not only directing, Anderson co-wrote the script with Owen Wilson, who also plays the part of Eli Cash, a longtime family friend and successful author. Wilson, who wrote with Anderson two times previously, shows surprisingly more depth as a writer than as an actor. With the dryness of the jokes, I was happy to find some delicious dark humor as well. Never have I seen a film that has a somber suicide scene followed up so quickly by a punch-line. However, like most comedies with such a large talented cast, one wonders how much credit is due to the writers, since improvisation is such a big factor. But with well-thought out characters and detailed scenes, it is clear that Wilson and Anderson deserved their Oscar nomination for 2002 Best Original Screenplay (Gosford Park won). The film received no other nominations and was not present at many award shows that season. But with the take it or leave it nature of Anderson’s films, it was not surprising. At the same time, Tenenbaums was his biggest overall award nomination grabber.
Critics generally liked the film, giving it a high 79% score on Rotten Tomatoes, though a tad lower among Top Critics. The haters gave the movie heat over the constant narration, giving the movie a more calculated banging-you-over-your-head directness, tail-spinning into odd side stories. For me, though, the film never loses its overall focus and the brief sideshows give the film character to make it stand out in a sea of independent, quirky comedies all trying to make a dent with the public (Pieces of April, any film released by Sony Pictures Classics). One thing all critics agreed on was the fact Hackman was on the top of his game.
Anderson is underappreciated for the fact that he understood and gave each character equal time and depth; a colossal flaw in today’s star-driven ensembles for not having (ie. The Expendables, Valentine’s Day). Yet Hackman is one of the most memorable parts of the movie. In a role that can easily be despised, Hackman’s wonderful performance, assisted by strong writing, has you feeling equally sorry for the excommunicated patriarch. Royal is socially clueless, always whole-heartedly concocting but half-assedly executing ways to be brought back in to the family circle. This two time Oscar winner is a welcome addition to any character, always managing to camouflage into a performance despite his distinctive look. This was a part of Hackman’s career relevance resurgence as he tried to appeal to a new generation, starring in younger skewing films like the Will Smith actioner Enemy of the State, Keanu Reeves' football comedy The Replacements, and the Jennifer Love Hewitt-Sigourney Weaver gold-digging romcom Heartbreakers (my guilty pleasure). It is unclear exactly why Hackman took the part after he swore off making art movies since his sour experience on Scarecrow (he thought this film was his finest performance but was upset that audiences would not see these types of films), resulting in him turning down lead parts in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Network. Unfortunately, Hackman only made three more films after Tenenbaums, retiring from acting and focusing on his career as a novelist. Hopefully he will make one last hurrah to the big screen to cap off his successful career, because who wants Welcome to Mooseport to be their last movie?
Huston has received work here-and-there, most notably appearing in Anderson’s two follow up films. Here, Anderson revealed that her character was inspired by his mother, right down to the same bulky eyeglasses. These personal touches throughout the film bring out a certain homemade charm.
Stiller shows that he can handle drama almost as proficiently as comedy. Stiller went on to be a big name star and turned his back completely on smaller filmmaking. Only just this year did he venture back into indie territory with the critical hit yet box office failure Greenberg. I wish he took a page from Adam Sandler’s career book, making biannual ventures into dramatic films to balance out his filmography. Owen Wilson similarly followed in Stiller’s footsteps, yet continually has co-starred in all of Anderson’s films so far. With five upcoming films already in the can, Owen had much more luck than his brother Luke in Hollywood. Showing initial promise, Luke has since floundered around with supporting roles in big budget films. While Luke is an amicable leading man, the films with his name above the marquee have averaged a pitiful $23 million – the average deflates into the teens if you take The Family Stone and Old School out of the mix. Paltrow, whose career hit a highpoint in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has flown under the radar as an underrated great, but has regained some recognition with the female role in the Iron Man franchise.
The Royal Tenenbaums remains director-writer Wes Anderson’s biggest box office success. He has made three more movies since then, including last Thanksgiving's Fantastic Mr. Fox (one of my top movies of that year). Anderson, unlike many indie directors, has never had the ambition to direct a mainstream film. Maybe that is because his distinct visual style wouldn’t fit a studio production. Anderson uses a great amount of symmetry in scenes as well as striking, vivid colors against contrasting backgrounds. He also has a sharp eye for metaphor. Anderson portrays how the Tenenbaums and their friends live in the heyday of their past, by still wearing the same clothing they did in the '70s, while the world around them has stopped wearing tracksuits and cowboy hats. But most notable might be his 90 degree pans to get character reactions without cutting. All of these elements help add to the quirky, dry humor he uses and I will love to see how these techniques will help further the story in the next film he has in store for us.
Released by Touchstone, Disney’s arm for non-G rated films, The Royal Tenenbaums opened in five theaters on December 14, 2001, in a platform release despite the well-known cast. By week four it had its highest grossing weekend with $8.5 million in 751 venues and by week seven it reached its highest screen count at 999 theaters. Made for $21 million, the film ended up with about $52.4 million ($73.6 million adjusted). Overseas, like most films of the ilk, accounted for little, only drawing $19 million.
Through DVD and TV, Tenenbaums has drawn somewhat of a cult following and is considered an essential in the Ben Stiller-Owen Wilson fan DVD collection. With the witty tagline, “Family Isn’t a Word…It’s a Sentence,” the dysfunctional family comedy has always been a reliable box office draw. Seeing these stars in a film just as they were on the cusp of entering mainstream success or just the irreverent humor alone that most can relate to when it comes to strained families, The Royal Tenenbaums is definitely With Us. It even has the stamp of approval from Criterion (a company that remasters current and classic important films); their recent DVD release is packed with worthwhile extras. My only complaint would be that the DVD is not packaged with a CD soundtrack - Anderson is one of the few masters of incorporating classic songs as the soundtrack to his films.
Wes Anderson is one of today’s few new current filmmakers whose unique style and quirky wit is a strong candidate to stand the test of time, being analyzed and celebrated. While the humor certainly is not for everyone, The Royal Tenenbaums is about the human nature of the fear of moving forward, and Anderson is not afraid to take the audience to dark places. The Addams Family was one of my favorite kid TV shows, but this snappy, dark, dry-humored, dysfunctional family might take the cake. Eli Cash tells Royal at one point, “I wish I was a Tenenbaum,” and like Royal, I would say, “Me too, me too.” Well, on second thought, maybe just a family friend would suffice.
8 out of 10
Verdict: With Us