This has been the season of fiction authors I love writing nonfiction books and directors I really like making children's movies. While I want to reward both for stretching outside their comfort zones, there's a greater potential for disappointment in each."Fantastic Mr. Fox" is definitely a Wes Anderson movie first and a children's movie second, and I think I liked it better that way. For me, this movie was a great escape: I went in fretting about whatever it is I normally fret about and walked out 90 minutes later with a smile on my face. Beautifully composed with dollhouse-level details, witty without resorting to topical jokes (that's for you, "The Squeakuel" trailer we had to sit through first), stacked with solid voice work -- it was strong on all fronts, even if I don't think I'll be watching it over and over like Anderson's others.
Anderson and co-screenwriter Noah "Minor Dickens" Baumbach did a fair amount of re-arranging on the original Roald Dahl book; Mr. Fox gets an opossum sidekick I didn't remember from the book (seen above), and his four children are condensed into one, Ash, a neurotic teenager voiced by Jason Schwartzman in the Schwartzmanest role he has ever Schwartzmanned. Mr. Fox's theft gets a backstory as well as a B-plot in the form of Ash feeling deprived of his dad's attention when cousin Kristofferson comes to stay with the Foxes. The screenwriters also add to the ending substantially, but I won't spoil that for you here.
I wouldn't call it inappropriate for children (except for the peril of having to explain to your kid what the rat calling Mrs. Fox "the town tart" means), but I can see how they would get bored, and maybe even a little scared once the Foxes go toe to toe with Boggis, Bunce and Bean. As for the Wes Anderson humor, some of it will go over their heads, but then again some people in my (kid-free) audience weren't laughing either.
I was surprised that Anderson managed to keep "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" mostly within his comfort zone; Dana Stevens wrote about the movie in Slate that "the Anderson tics that threaten to get in the way of his storytelling in live-action films serve as assets here," and while I like the director more than she does, I do think this one plays to his strengths in a kind of unique way. It may yet sneak onto my top 10 of the year, although I have a lot of movies to catch up on before making that call.
FTC cover-assery: I paid for this ticket myself, but because I signed up for MovieWatcher 800 years ago, I now have a free ticket to burn off in the next three weeks. If I'm going to use it on a literary depress-o-fest this weekend, should I go for "The Road" or "The Lovely Bones"? I like the former book better, if that helps.
Still: ign.com
5 comments:
Use it on "The Princess and the Frog"!
I'll definitely see it, but Claire and I will probably go together when we get home for Christmas.
It sounded like "The Lovely Bones" was maybe a victim of its own budget and overplayed the heaven stuff too much, but I heard that third-hand.
I hear that the movie ends with Bobby Fuller's "Let Her Dance" - a great, Wes Anderson-y note on which to close.
W.G.: I looked the song up and it sounds familiar, but I can't remember whether it's played at the end. It is a very whimsical ending, though, and there's another very funny musical joke buried in the middle of the movie.
Marjorie: I've read some definitely middling reviews and it seems that they made significant changes from the book. But I'm still interested.
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