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Farcical, yet philosophical
The Royal Tenenbaums is a pleasant change from brain-dead comedies
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Deepa Gumaste
If there were a film both silly and profound at once, it would have to be The Royal Tenenbaums. This audacious saga about a dysfunctional family oscillates between farce and philosophy with amazing equanimity.
Alec Baldwin's crisp narrative set against the backdrop of the moody notes of the Beatles' Hey Jude gives us a storybook introduction to the quirky Tenenbaums. Crooked attorney Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline (Angelica Huston) are parents to three miserable geniuses --- Chas (Ben Stiller), who makes a killing on the stock market as a child investor, Richie (Luke Wilson, an ace tennis champ and permanently sports a Bjorn Borg-style headband and long hair, and Margot (Gweneth Paltrow), the adopted daughter who becomes a successful playwright while still in the ninth grade.
When their parents' marriage falls apart and Royal leaves the family, the three children slowly slide into a permanent state of depression and develop a variety of psychoses.
Chas loses his wife in a plane crash and becomes an overprotective, obsessed father. Margot, who has always lived under the burden of her 'adopted' status becomes increasingly secretive, locks herself in the bathroom for hours to hide her smoking habit from her much older husband (Bill Murray) and carries on with novelist and childhood friend Eli Cash (Owen Wilson). Richie's tennis career ends abruptly when he discovers he is in love with Margot and writes a letter to Cash confessing his feelings.
Etheline, who has tried to be the best mother she could be, has run through several affairs and suitors before succumbing to the gentle advances of her chartered accountant (Danny Glover). And Royal himself has been living on credit in a hotel for 22 years.
Finally, when he is politely evicted from his residence, he invents a story about a terminal illness that is going to swallow him up in six weeks and lands up at the family home where the three children too have unexpectedly arrived.
While Richie is sympathetic towards his father, Margot hates him for always introducing her as his adopted daughter, and Chas is still smarting over Royal's theft of his funds when he was but a child. Royal's lie is eventually exposed, but by then, each of the Tenenbaums is gradually learning to deal with their peculiar relations and coming to terms with themselves. While the pace of the film slackens halfway through, it picks up in time for a superbly anarchic climax.
The story, penned by director Wes Anderson and actor Owen Wilson (they earlier made the much acclaimed Rushmore), is set in present-day New York, but the characters and their surroundings seem wrapped in a unique time zone that has no relation with here and now --- their stylised clothes, the house with antiquated interiors, vintage televisions and record players, rusty cabs --- all give their lives a sense of make-believe.
The brilliant background score and songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Van Morrison among others, accentuate the old-world feel.
A large part of the credit for the success of such a theatrical saga should go to its dazzling cast. Stiller is uncharacteristically unfunny, Paltrow keeps a deadpan face, thereby heightening Margot's sense of emotional disconnect and Luke Wilson sports a permanently creased forehead. Glover plays the shy suitor to perfection and Houston is equally impressive as the formidable Mrs Tenenbaum.
But it is Gene Hackman who walks away with the best part, the smartest lines and the most memorable performance of the film (he bagged a Golden Globe Award for this act). As the obnoxious but loving Royal, he generates a great deal of excitement and infuses the proceedings with a generous dose of wicked humour.
The Royal Tenenbaums is a must-see for all those who want a change from the regular fare of brain-dead comedies.
Also read:
An earlier review of The Royal Tenenbaums
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