Rated: R for language, Sexuality/Nudity and Drug Content (Cigarettes?).

Starring: Gene Hackman, Angelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke and Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Bill Murray and Kumar Pallana.

Alec Baldwin as the voice of the narrator.

Written by: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson

Directed by: Wes Anderson

Produced by: American Empirical and Touchstone Pictures

Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures

A look at a very interesting dysfunctional family of child geniuses, and their parents.

Set to the style of a book or play "The Royal Tenenbaums"(see bottom of review for more) is a treat for people who understand Dark comedy. It deals with the one thing families can all agree upon, their family is dysfunctional. But creator Wes Anderson tries it with three former child geniuses, one good at tennis,but currently a loner, a economist with a fear for his children's lives, and a playwright who secretly is a smoker and has had a mysterious life, while also being adopted, which is known from introductions to the characters in the opening sequence. What ends up happening is that Royal (Gene Hackman) is the father who wants to spend time with his grown-up kids, so he tells them and their mother he has cancer so that they can get to know him before he dies. The Movie gets very depressing when getting into the intricacies of their somehow horrible lives, but through some crafty lines with suttle dark humor you get to see that everyone has the depressing lives even if they don't want you to know about it and that some people get a kick out of these stories of lost dreams and ambitions.

Gene Hackman, does a wonderful job playing the father who just wants to spend time with his family before he dies. His associate Pagoda(Pallana), a former hired assassin to kill him is now working for the guy who he stabbed in the gut, (considered one of the obvious dark humored jokes in the movie).

There's only one problem with this film, and that is the speed of the story, it feels a bit rushed from the begining you get a snipet of each of the child genius' lives before they grow-up. The only character we get a full look at is Margot Tenenbaum (Paltrow) and her mysterious life that gets into one scene later in the film and after the complicated life she lives through is shown, one of the character's proclaims "She's a smoker" after we see that she was more secretive with other stuff besides the smoking. This becomes my favourite joke in the movie, because one character just exclaimed that without mentioning the other stuff. And by the time the movie ends your amazed that they rushed through a 2 hour some minutes movie.

This movie from the Creator of "Rushmore" with the line "O R they?" (Oh are they?) doesn't have jokes like the one mentioned with the smooth sounding private high schooler with a case of major revenge on Bill Murray's character in "Rushmore". Bill Murray returns in "Tenenbaums" in a Supporting role.

(as mentioned above) Each selected scene starts with a book page read the first line of the chapter and see it visually on the screen when scene starts, The text goes into detail about costumes and settings.

9/10 Funny but depressing look at a dysfunctional family, people who can't grasp dark humor should see this with someone skilled in it so they can teach the basics. 100%/100% camera and visual style won over what felt like a rushed 2 hour some minutes long film.