Chiseled from Rushmore’s Stone: Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaaums

The New York City of Wes Andersonís new film, The Royal Tenenbaums,
remains unnamed, and it features a 375th Street Y and a 22nd Avenue subway
line, not to mention taxis operated by a certain ìGypsy Cab Company.î The
Tenenbaum mansion, huge and ornate, stands next to the Japanese embassy
in an imaginary Upper Upper East (or is it West?) Side. The Tenenbaum family
and associates exhibit a cartoonish stasis, at least in their clothes: each of the
characters always wears the same outfit, from Chas Tenenbaumís (Ben Stiller)
red jogging garb to Henry Shermanís (Danny Glover) bright blue suit.

A fast-paced introduction recounts the Tenenbaum family history: the three
Tenenbaum children, Chas, Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Richie (Luke
Wilson) are child prodigies: founding companies, writing award-winning plays,
and winning tennis championships, respectively. Their father, Royal (the great
Gene Hackman) is indifferent; eventually he moves out of the Tenenbaum
house, leaving the childrearing to his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston).

Now adults, the children are all failures, shells of their childhood success. After a
17-year absence from the family, Royal moves back into the house on the
pretext that he is dying of cancer and secretly arranges the return of all the
children as well. As the ads say, theyíre all going to try to live under the same
roof again. Structured with chapter headings and other literary devices, the film
also features an omniscient narrator (Alec Baldwin) in the vein of Orson Wellesí
The Magnificent Ambersons, a clear influence.

Wes Anderson, director of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, is in
danger of being overpraised, but I see nothing wrong with the trend. Any of the
elements that make up his films would be remarkable taken separately, but the
fact that all exist together is nothing short of amazing.

Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson (who appears here as family friend Eli
Cash) have a knack for original dialogue: Iím sure everyone who saw
Rushmore has a favorite lineóe.g. ìI saved Latin. What did you ever
do?îóand The Royal Tenenbaums shows no signs of creative slackening.
Anderson is also a great director of actors; heís able to have different performers
play different registers within the same scene, as when a mugging Bill Murray
contrasts Gwenyth Paltrowís totally unresponsive, sullen face early in the
film.

Likewise, Andersonís ability to shift tone is rare in any medium. Witness recent
episodes of Saturday Night Live for how painful failure attempts can be:
nobody knew how to react when the Weekend Update segment switched to a
serious tribute to George Harrison after ten minutes of sarcasm. Anderson is
delicateóone might even say Shakespeareanóin his efforts; the amazing
wedding scene toward the end of the Tenenbaums is in continual tonal
flux, from slapstick all the way to utter seriousness.

What glues all these elements together is Andersonís highly original,
deceptively simple, visual style. He favors dead-on symmetrical compositions,
which produce a homemade, knowingly primitive theatricality, enhanced by his
use of bright, intricately color-coded sets. Anderson knows the integrity of the
shot: he often uses the space of the widescreen ëScope frame to put three
heads in close-up without having to cut between them, and toward the end of
the film, thereís a spectacular crane-and-pan shot which unites every character
in the same cinematic space. Anderson, of course, is a spectacular editor; part of
the fun of The Royal Tenenbaumsí rapid narration sequences is
wondering just how each shot fuses to the next one.

Even if The Royal Tenenbaumsí social sphere focuses almost entirely on
the rich, Anderson is still one of the few American filmmakers to have anything
remotely intelligent to say about class. I thought one of the most overlooked
elements of Rushmore was Max Fisherís anxiety over having a barber for
a father while attending an elite private school; it was moving to watch him and
the bored industrialist Herbert Bloom maintain (and almost lose) an unlikely
friendship. In Tenenbaums, the social commentary is subtler: the
characters are all overwhelmed by their own failure. In one of the filmís best
scenes, we see the disastrous (and hilarious) tennis match that ends Richie
Tenenbaumís career. The Royal Tenenbaums acknowledges Americansí
simultaneous fear of, yet resignation to, ending up on the bottom curve of the
success arc.

What differs here from Andersonís two previous films is the somewhat darker
feeling. The underlying sadness effusing Rushmore breaks into
full-blown melancholy: Anderson has said that he wanted to make a movie
where a character might die.

Still, that doesnít mean the film is too different, if anything, it is Andersonian to a
fault. Perhaps Anderson and Wilsonís taste is too self-consciously cute, too
much like a cinematic Faberge egg, but honestly I donít care. If I have any
complaint, itís merely that my favorite Anderson player, Bill Murray (whoís
probably the greatest working actor in American movies) has very few scenes. In
fact, except for Hackman, there are so many good actors spread across the
filmís two hours that fans of any one of them might feel shortchanged. So it goes
with the ensemble pictureówe still get Anderson regulars Seymour Cassel and
Kumar Pallana.

At a certain point, it becomes useless to say anything more about The Royal
Tenenbaums, simply because the film so rich in detail that any description
must leave out the minutiae which it make it such a melancholic joy. I can only
add that Anderson, aided by his very talented collaborators, does what a great
director is supposed to do: he creates his own universe.

The Royal Tenenbaums opens Dec. 14.