The Royal Tenenbaums - Session Times And Movie Reviews

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The Royal Tenenbaums

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Three former child prodigies, each one scarred by two decades of failure and betrayal, are reunited when their lying father announces that he has a short time to live. Comedy starring Ben Stiller, Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Houston and Danny Glover.

Rated:	[ MA ]
Cinema release:	14 Mar 2002
Video release:	23 Oct 2002
DVD release:	30 Apr 2003
Director:	Wes Anderson
Running time:	108 mins
Stars:	Ben Stiller, Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray, Luke Wilson
Links:	Official Site IMDb Rotten Tomatoes

What we say

The Royal Tenenbaums

Kerry Bashford, MovieFix
3 star rating

The Royal Tenenbaums are an odd bunch indeed. Royal is a deadbeat dad on an epic scale, the mother spectacularly long-suffering and the children faded child prodigies. Dad's trying to get back into the family's good graces by pretending to be dying while the rest of the family eagerly await the day of his demise. With a cast that includes three Oscar winners, the acting is without fault, the writing thrillingly ambitious and the direction never short of daring.

With his last film Rushmore, Wes Anderson charmed critics and audiences alike with his wonderful whimsy and a cinematic sense rooted deeply in the anti-establishment dramedies of the late '60s and early '70s. It had all the hallmarks: an affectionately assembled folky soundtrack, a pacy plot and fast editing, and oddball characters making strange associations in equally unusual situations while wearing kooky clothes (except in the '60s, the clothes weren't so kooky).

The Royal Tenenbaums has all these elements and more but now this curious formula is only intermittently successful. What was at first fresh and quirky now feels contrived and forced. You feel like writers Anderson and actor Owen Wilson might have watched Harold and Maude one too many times. While Rushmore was content to wink at its audience, The Royal Tenenbaums feels the need to nudge them in the ribs. The plot is even more incident-ridden, with more characters with more issues. What saves the film is that all the comedic trappings are compellingly black, and the drama is palpable indeed and as good a study of family relations as anything of recent.

This is largely due to a cast who are able to distract you from the dreadful dress sense shared by all characters, the aforementioned "kooky clothes". The film looks like a detonated thrift shop and you get a kind of perverse pleasure from watching Gene Hackman, Angelica Huston and Gwyneth Paltrow attired like the homeless on a bad hair day. Inevitably, the couture reduces these complex characters to cartoons, especially the Tenenbaum children, who have been wearing the same suit of clothes since childhood — presumably to imply that their life stopped in adolescence when their status as prodigies paled. Or, maybe it's meant to imply how the dysfunctions of their family have left them emotionally stunted, indeed infantile. Or, maybe it's just to make them look kooky.

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What you say

Royal Flush
Lifeless
[Untitled]

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What you say

Royal Flush

In my opinion, Wes Anderson has improved his efforts marginally since "Rushmore". With a more mature attitude to the film, the characters were all lovable in their own unlikeable way. Gene Hackman does the bad-parent, bad-person-all-round bit excellently. Gwyneth Paltrow has found her calling as a misery guts and no matter how many times Ben Stiller does the angry-man-about-to-burst role, you can't help but love his characters. The Royal Tenenbaums is a great film that shouldn't be missed.

Ben Boyd
Melbourne, VIC
27 May 2002

Lifeless

This is probably the worst film I have EVER seen, its dreary, boring and so lifeless I not only nearly fell asleep but had to check my pulse on a couple of occasions to make sure I hadn't carked it.

I couldn't understand why script writers would take such a good mix of actors and actresses and have them basically run through their lines like they can't really be bothered.

It's not funny, it's not insightful, it's not clever, it's just boring crap and should never be paid for.

Uterly Depressed
Mosman, NSW
18 Apr 2002

[Untitled]

This film opens with a look at three children, all prodigies. Chas Tenenbaum (Ben Stiller) is a young financial wiz. Adopted daughter Margot Tenenbaum (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a young playwright. Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson) is a tennis prodigy. When the marriage of their parents Royal (Gene Hackman) and Etheline (Anjelica Huston) falls apart, so do the subsequent lives of the Tenenbaum children.

But one fateful winter decades later, for varying reasons, the family is brought back together.

From the creator of "Rushmore," Wes Anderson, "The Royal Tenenbaums" is a wickedly black comedic treasure. The film is wonderfully constructed and very stylistic in its look. It addresses some extremely serious issues, but even in its serious moments it never loses its sense of humour.

A superb ensemble cast, with not one bad performance throughout. Special mention should go to Gene Hackman as Royal. His performance is a standout. Gwyneth Paltrow goes way up in my personal estimations, especially after the overrated Shakespeare In Love. One scene in particular definitely got my attention! What a person will do in the name of art!

This is such a well-written film, I wish there were more films like it. As you can probably tell, I loved it. Highly recommended.

Anonymous
VIC
16 Mar 2002