The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Very well-directed and designed, certainly. But pretty much from the opening minutes, I knew this film was not for me. We've scarcely gotten past the opening title before we're thrown headlong into Wes Anderson's tiresome game of "How Clever Can I Get?" To my consternation, the tsunami of forced whimsy never abates, not for one goddamn second. And the real pisser is that, by trying to cram as many witty ideas into the narrative as humanly possible, Anderson shortchanges his film -- he's so concerned with all the self-conscious cleverness that he expends zero energy on emotional content. That'd be all well and good if he were just aiming for a brainy comedy and nothing else, but Anderson wants us to care for these characters too. Sorry, Wes... that's just not happening. Short of Bill Murray's unwitting cuckold, I didn't like any of these characters, and I actively loathed a couple of them. And pretty much the only reason I cared for Murray's character was solely because of Murray's expert characterization. Matter of fact, most of the actors in this film give Anderson better performances than the weak material warrants, with two glaring exceptions -- Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson, who play the two most potentially interesting characters as total ciphers. Which is a damn shame, since Anderson decides that these two will be our main characters. To his credit, Anderson does get a lot of the fringe details right. His direction is also far more interesting than his screenwriting, and his musical taste is once again impeccable. All these qualities come together in two great montages -- one where Gene Hackman takes his grandsons out for some good-natured hooliganism and one involving a laundry list of sexual partners. Yet, the film fails because these side excursions cannot improve the film's cutesy and vapid screenplay. If you require proof of this film's inadequacy, here you go: Anderson has a brilliant closing line that would have raised the film's rating a half-grade all by itself ("It's been a rough year, Dad."). Too bad that line is immediately followed by ten minutes of worthless, wrap-it-up-in-a-nice-and-tidy-package epilogue.
Grade: C
Very well-directed and designed, certainly. But pretty much from the opening minutes, I knew this film was not for me. We've scarcely gotten past the opening title before we're thrown headlong into Wes Anderson's tiresome game of "How Clever Can I Get?" To my consternation, the tsunami of forced whimsy never abates, not for one goddamn second. And the real pisser is that, by trying to cram as many witty ideas into the narrative as humanly possible, Anderson shortchanges his film -- he's so concerned with all the self-conscious cleverness that he expends zero energy on emotional content. That'd be all well and good if he were just aiming for a brainy comedy and nothing else, but Anderson wants us to care for these characters too. Sorry, Wes... that's just not happening. Short of Bill Murray's unwitting cuckold, I didn't like any of these characters, and I actively loathed a couple of them. And pretty much the only reason I cared for Murray's character was solely because of Murray's expert characterization. Matter of fact, most of the actors in this film give Anderson better performances than the weak material warrants, with two glaring exceptions -- Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson, who play the two most potentially interesting characters as total ciphers. Which is a damn shame, since Anderson decides that these two will be our main characters. To his credit, Anderson does get a lot of the fringe details right. His direction is also far more interesting than his screenwriting, and his musical taste is once again impeccable. All these qualities come together in two great montages -- one where Gene Hackman takes his grandsons out for some good-natured hooliganism and one involving a laundry list of sexual partners. Yet, the film fails because these side excursions cannot improve the film's cutesy and vapid screenplay. If you require proof of this film's inadequacy, here you go: Anderson has a brilliant closing line that would have raised the film's rating a half-grade all by itself ("It's been a rough year, Dad."). Too bad that line is immediately followed by ten minutes of worthless, wrap-it-up-in-a-nice-and-tidy-package epilogue.
Grade: C
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