The Royal Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenenbaums is writer/director Wes Anderson’s 3rd feature film, following his 1st project Bottlerockets and the critically acclaimed follow up Rushmore. This film is perhaps less accessible to the general movie going audience, but it’s nevertheless my personal favorite of Anderson’s.
The humor is dry to the point of dehydration, but those who appreciate the humor in The Office or David Mamet’s screenplays will likely enjoy this film’s quirky sense of comedy. As an example of just how dry the humor is, when Royal Tenenbaum meets his grandchildren (8 year old Ari and 6 year old Uzi) for the first time, he says of their recently deceased mother “ I was very sorry to hear about your mother, she was a terribly attractive woman.”
It’s also explained by the narrator during the film that Royal always introduces his adopted daughter Margo with the phrase “This is my adopted daughter, Margo.” This sort of awkward/uncomfortable interaction between the family members persists throughout the film in subtlety humorous fashions.
All of Anderson’s films employ the theme of an absent father either figuratively or literally. However in this film that theme takes center stage as the protagonist, patriarch Royal Tenenbaum, has been absent from the rest of his family for over a decade. His absence was an imposed exile for his numerous failings as a father, but those failings were mostly unintentional. Royal simply doesn’t have a clue how to interact with other people in a constructive manner, and it becomes apparent very early on in the film that he was never ready for being a father.
It’s not clear at the beginning of the film whether Royal’s attempt to make amends with his family is the result of his need for a place to stay, or a genuine ambition to redeem himself as a father. We learn early in the film after an introduction to the cast through the use of a montage featuring music by the Ramones (the musical montage is one of Anderson’s key storytelling devices throughout his film career whenever he needs to convey a large amount of information and/or emotion in a short period of time) that Royal is being evicted from the hotel room he’s been living in for years.
His financial state is in complete ruins as a result of the lawsuit his youngest son Chas brought against him for stealing money from his childhood business. The lawsuit also resulted in Royal being disbarred as a lawyer, effectively ending his career. The remainder of the film depicts Royal's attempts to worm his way back into the good graces of his family. I won't tell you how it ends, but after more than a dozen viewings of this movie I'm still not sure if he truly succeeds.
The Royal Tenenbaums is a film that I really can't recommend enough. While I understand that it won't appeal to everyone's sense of humor, this film should be given a chance by anyone who appreciates excellent cinematography, a great soundtrack as well as an incredible original score, and well acted ensemble casts.
