As a bit of a disclaimer I would not refer to myself as a Wes Anderson fan. I have seen most, but not all his films and I have had a varying level of enjoyment to each one. I view a few as legitimately great, most are good and the rest are okay. If a new Wes Anderson movie is released there is a fair chance I will see it, and a reasonable chance I will go see it in theatres (although this is not a must for his films) I am not sure I would classify any of Anderson’s movies as all out bad, with possibly my worst criticism on the ones I would classify as okay is because I find they often tend towards boring. I mention this particular criticism because when I first watched this movie I found it very boring. A minor spoiler to the rest of the review I did not like it this time around, but I recognize it still had a lot of good points and I can understand why others would like this, I just did not.
Chapter 1 – First Look: Very boring. I am not exactly sure what year I first watched the Royal Tenenbaums, but I wager is was about 2004ish. This was based on several friend recommendations (the ones I took more seriously) about this up and coming film-maker and his breakout movie (I know Wes Anderson had two movies before this one, but Tenenbaums is definitely his breakout, even if only in a cult following sense). And I definitely remember that I rented it and watched at home, and I definitely fell asleep about an hour into it (ditto for Mrs. Fistcrush) making it a little more than halfway. Not wanting to waste precious rental money or time I gave it a second go the next morning, rewinding it about 20 minutes in case I missed some of the movie through groggy half-awake ness and probably managed to add about 10 minutes to my watch time before I eventually gave up. At that age this movie just did not work for me as I did not relate to any of the characters and aside from a few events it did not seem like much was happening and this was helped by the characters blasé reactions to things that happened in the movie. One thing I did notice at the time was that even though I did not like it, The Royal Tenenbaums was fairly unique and original, there was really nothing like it at the time. I have for a long time felt that in order to get mass enjoyment out of media consumption one needs to engage with it at the proper time in their life. I read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in grade 8 and had a mind blowing enduring love for it ever since, but if I were to read it now I would probably not enjoy it so I don’t and continue loving my memories. With regards to the Royal Tenenbaums, at age I was in 2004, this was not the time for me to enjoy it so it was time to let it be and move on. My one regret for this was based on how I felt about this movie I avoided Anderson’s other movies for some time and this is too bad because subsequent to this film were my favourites that he did.
Chapter 2: Second Look – Not So Boring. Watching this recently was my literal second look and this time I did not find this film boring this time around. I found it interesting enough to follow through to the end (Mrs. Fistcrush fell asleep with about 15 minutes left, so improvement there also). Maybe since I have seen more of Anderson’s movies at this point I am more in tune with his style, maybe at this age I am better with slower and drier dialogue/comedy, or maybe taste in general has changed. If I were to bet it would be some combination of those and other unmentioned factors. Just to get it clear, I still do not like The Royal Tenenbaums except for completely different reasons than last time. From a more thematic perspective, I just thought this movie was very mean spirited (which ironically 2004 me probably would have loved this), and just did not resonate with me at all. I came to this final realization near the end of the movie with the killing of Buckley ending up as the final straw drawing together all the reasons I did not like this movie during this watch. It was not even the killing I had the biggest problem with but the reaction to it. I was going to keep this to one paragraph because I do not like harping on movies too much and rather celebrating them but it is important with a movie like this one and a review like a second look to get into what I am feeling having watched this again. I will cover my reasons for not liking this more in depth and individually, but like an ensemble cast comedy drama, those reason will still intertwine somewhat.
Chapter 3: Mean-spirited. I found the family (and close friend Eli Cash) treatment of Margo and constantly bringing up her being adopted to be very mean spirited towards her character. In the first half of the film this was understandable as most of the characters were lost, wayward or in need of redemption/healing (more on that later). But this pervades through the second half of the film and I would have been more okay with it if there was some show of affection/acceptance as a part of the family towards the end and there was nothing. I am a sucker for found family stories, especially lately, and seeing this play out on screen just rubbed me the wrong way. The nonchalant attitude of the movie ends up glossing over a lot of other bad behaviour of characters, Bill Murray’s husband of Margo does not show any emotion when he finds she has been cheating on him and possibly the most dramatic scene of the movie being Rich’s suicide attempt seems completely forgotten a few scenes later. Most egregious for me, Buckley the dog owned by two of the youngest members of the Tenenbaum family (Ari and Uzi, Royal’s grandchildren) is killed pretty starkly. No one seems at all upset by the dog being violently killed in front of them (and almost the two boys), including the police who show up to not really respond to the situation. Royal buys the kids a Dalmatian from the fire department to replace the animal they showed basically no affection for. Maybe I am reading this one wrong and it is meant to be more absurdist or something similar, maybe I just got off on the wrong foot and continued on that path but it all kept putting me more and more off.
Chapter 4: Themes. Some of the main themes are isolation, redemption, forgiveness and family/dysfunction. Anderson does an uneven job juggling some of these themes with the story he is telling and the style he chooses to tell it with. Isolation and dysfunction are covered well and very well but on the flip side redemption and forgiveness not as much. I found redemption was largely had waved, particularly Royal’s redemption in order to give the story more closure at the end. If you take the events of just what you see on screen, then yes, I can feel like he may have at least mostly earned it. But we are told how absent, and damaging he has been to his wife and children over the past 20ish years, and as such a couple of good acts near the end of the movie is all it takes. To give the movie some credit, if we go back to isolation, each family member isolates themselves mainly based on Royal’s behaviour, Margo due to his criticism or her screenplay(s), Chas through Royal stealing from him, Richie runs away from his failure and Etheline keeps other men from getting too close. This is all handled very well in the movie and you can see how the isolation leads to dysfunction. In retrospect it was more than likely this that kept me watching and holding my interest the whole way through on this watch. Also I can easily see how other can build on this and why the movie is so universally loved.
Chapter 5: What the movie does right. I hate harping on movies and being so negative so I am shifting gears and talking about it’s strengths of which there are a good few. The title cards explaining each scene is a nice touch and adds to the whimsy of the film (I tried somewhat to emulate that for this review even though that does not work as well without the visual medium), as does the soundtrack with many songs that also serve to punctuate what is happening on screen, all done well. There are many subtle touches to scenes such as smoke being blown from behind a wall to indicate Margo hiding her smoking from everyone and Mortecai the falcon returning as a “if you love something let it go” reference that pays off later when Royal eventually grants Etheline the divorce leading to everyone working towards getting better. Richie’s suicide is harrowing to watch but so well done it still scares me. All of these things together do make a good movie, and if I hadn’t been put off by the other aspects then I really do think I would have loved this one.
Chapter 6: Final Thoughts. Like I said earlier, I don’t like this movie, but I can understand why others would. There is a lot to like with this movie and a lot of the things I did like I have seen used to greater effects in subsequent Anderson movies and as such had greater pay-offs for me. In the end I am glad I did this rewatch for this article, but at the same time I am a little sad that I did not like it as I though I would have (this is also the longest individual movie review I have ever done for others to read, I am so far out of my comfort zone and terrified of the response). I did say I am up to do more Second Looks so next time I will go for something I enjoyed the first time around and hopefully spend the whole article geeking out.