The Royal Tenenbaums

Released 2001
Stars Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Bill Murray
Directed by Wes Anderson

When I first heard the title, I thought The Royal Tenenbaums was going to be a spoof of the The Magnificent Ambersons. There are some superficial similarities, but this movie has its own story about an immensely dysfunctional family. The father is Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), who's a selfish rat bastard and not much of a father. He moves out of the house when the three kids are around 10, and he tells them it's pretty much not their fault. Through a lengthy prologue, we watch the three child prodigies develop into neurotic adults with severe emotional problems. The first time I watched this movie, I was a little confused about what I was supposed to feel. Every single character is a broad caricature, which you would expect in a screwball comedy, but this isn't a screwball comedy. It's an extremely dry comedy, and I was thrown for a loop by how seriously it took the characters. I was howling with laughter during the prologue, and I expected the rest of the movie to mercilessly lampoon them. It doesn't do that, though. It's genuinely fond of the characters, and it wants us to like them as well. There were even some surprisingly warm moments that crept up on me. All of this is unusual for something this merciless, and it works brilliantly.

Summary by Bill Alward, August 17, 2002