"The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001) - Movie Review

Movie making style as such is diminishing day by day. While it is good to see some new things learned from the styles which were already invented, there seems to be no new technique of story telling which makes the viewer attentive. In that aspect, director Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums” is independent and has its tone of individuality. Whether this manner of film making enhances or destroys the story is something depends on varying perceptions. In my point of view, it is both enhancing and destroying the script’s substance.

The story is taken in a manner of narration which is a voice over. Rightly it gives the introduction of the highly gifted three siblings with separated parents. Their father Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) negates the children and pursues his own way of life. His wife Etheline Tenenbaum (Angelica Huston) raises the kids. Each kid is gifted with a talent of individuality. Chas (Ben Stiller), the eldest is a born business man; Richie (Luke Wilson) is a sports prodigy while the adopted daughter Margot(Gwyneth Paltrow) who is in the middle is a creative play writer. They grow to be miserably devastated in their personal life. Each does not know how to deal with it when Royal comes to know of a Henry Sherman (Danny Glover), accountant of Etheline proposing to marry her. This for some reason ignites the fuel to win his family back whom he desolated in the past for a considerable amount of time. He poses himself dying and with the aid of the house keeper Pagoda (Kumar Pallana), he gets back in to the house.

There is a definite sluggishness at the start of all these characters. This sluggishness predominantly transports throughout the screenplay until the final thirty minutes. This is the result of the style I was talking about. The colour tones and the photographical nature of narration are unique but the script wanders with no proper intention till the final sequences. The half an hour spells the magic to make the first hour and fifteen minutes likeable. The humour which is dry and mostly based on the misery of a character is bland but interesting. The mixed feeling is unavoidable. The same kind of movie making in “Rushmore” created the uneven balance of banal and intriguing. It travels to this one too. The difference though is that there are more than two characters in this movie than the “Rushmore” to make it interesting in a very dry manner.

Luke Wilson may have been slammed for portraying the emotional but unexpressive Richie. I felt totally opposite of it. The basis of the experience getting transferred gripping in the end is the performance of him. Some how he pulled it all together in a way I cannot imagine. Richie as a kid looks bubbly and all smiles. When he grows up, he is introduced in a ship some where in the middle of nowhere. With this scenario, he would have been wrongly assumed for an eccentric who is going to erupt any moment. He does have turned into this adult with suppressed feelings which push him into the eccentricity status. But he totally blows everyone apart for his affection towards his dad. For unknown reasons, Royal shows a special affection to him. It is getting returned as an adult. He seems aggravated but he hurts himself than any one else. And Luke Wilson definitely gives a performance which holds this otherwise unexplained reaction generated by the movie.

The second catapulting factor is the performance of Gene Hackman as the irresponsible Royal. Apart from abandoning his children at a young age (which is brutal), there seems to be hinting of his infidelity. Hence this screen factor is not solid enough to despise him from the point of viewers. Hackman and the characterization of Royal duly perform this. These two actors and also as characters makes this movie tough for anyone to come for a conclusion of whether it is totally banal or nice creative characters to induce some interest.