- Film Review
- Reviewed By Andrew Collins
-
5 out of 5
Produced and directed by the hugely talented Wes Anderson and co-written with actor and regular collaborator Owen Wilson, this is the much anticipated follow-up to Rushmore, one of the quirkier American films of the late 1990s. The Royal Tenenbaums is no less quirky. It's a story about a gifted but dysfunctional New York family that is reunited when estranged patriarch Gene Hackman feigns terminal illness. An ambitiously original ensemble comedy, it is related in an episodic, storybook format with off-screen narration from Alec Baldwin. This stylised presentation suggests that the interlocking subplots involving the various Tenenbaums - Gwyneth Paltrow's foundering marriage to Bill Murray; Ben Stiller's paranoia; Luke Wilson's deepening depression - will be resolved in a detached fashion, without warmth or the audience's empathy. That is not so. As the narrative builds, the atmosphere thaws and something like poetry unfolds. Immaculately written and brilliantly performed (with Hackman, especially, on magnificent form), this extraordinary fable restores one's faith in American cinema.
Plot Summary
Offbeat comedy drama starring Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller and Gwyneth Paltrow. Royal Tenenbaum is the estranged father of three gifted children whose promise foundered when he and his wife Etheline split up. A once successful lawyer, Royal is now broke and homeless. Feigning terminal illness, he is taken in by the soon-to-be-remarried Etheline, but his presence awakens long-dormant family demons.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Royal Tenenbaum
- Gene Hackman
- Etheline Tenenbaum
- Anjelica Huston
- Chas Tenenbaum
- Ben Stiller
- Margot Tenenbaum
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Eli Cash
- Owen Wilson
- Raleigh St Clair
- Bill Murray
- Henry Sherman
- Danny Glover
- Richie Tenenbaum
- Luke Wilson
- Pagoda
- Kumar Pallana
- Dusty
- Seymour Cassel
- Narrator
- Alec Baldwin
- Ari Tenenbaum
- Grant Rosenmeyer
Crew
- Director
- Wes Anderson
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