By Lindsi Hebert, Staff Reporter.
Released in 2001 and directed by Wes Anderson, “The Royal Tenenbaums” starts when Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) hears that his ex-wife is going to get married. Unable to accept this, Royal goes to lie to his divorced wife and three grown children and tell them he is dying. This sends his three child prodigies back to their childhood home to unwillingly spend some time with their father.
The children are: Margot Tenenbaum (Gwyneth Paltrow) a playwright and adopted daughter, Chas Tenenbaum (Ben Stiller) an international finance genius and has sued his father, Royal, two times in the past, and Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson) who is a tennis star that’s been sailing all over the world, and is in love with Margot.
There is certainly some burned bridges between the now grown children and Royal, and things only get more interesting when Royal starts spending time with his grandchildren, all while getting reacquainted with the family.
“The Royal Tenenbaums” is one of those movies where you can watch it again and again and still enjoy it. The characters are interesting, and the cast is a mix of Anderson’s usual suspects and some new recruits. They’re funny, and play off of each other well. Technically speaking, “The Royal Tenenbaums” is a dramedy, which is the hybrid child of a drama and a comedy, and most of the actual humor tends to revolve around Royal Tenenbaum himself.
The fact that his family is really eccentric only seems to add interest into everything, and Royal’s the type of character that always has a joke for something. Because this does have some drama, towards the ending things start to get real. No spoilers, as I always promise, but it gets really serious really fast to a song by Elliott Smith and well… you’ll have to watch it to see what I mean.
There are, of course, some faults with “The Royal Tenenbaums”. Wes Anderson is a director who has a certain, very distinct style. He’s partial to certain color schemes and camera shots. This (usually) makes the movies he directs interesting. However, there are some people out there that don’t like that kind of thing and might find it annoying.
The humor in “The Royal Tenenbaums”” can be a bit dry at times. Sometimes a joke will fall flat, or the characters won’t hang on the punchline long enough for the audience to laugh, but again, that’s Anderson’s style. You either love it or hate it, kind of like black licorice. I’d even go so far as to say that there’s more drama than comedy, and the themes get really dark, but it’s still an incredibly interesting film to watch.
“The Royal Tenenbaums” has to be one of my favorite Anderson films to watch because I find the characters in it ridiculously funny, and the set design in the movie is really lovely. Does it make me laugh until soda squirts out my nose? No. There’s a bit too much drama in the movie for me to do that, but the overall situation that Royal gets himself into and the bizarreness of his family keep the movie interesting and it keeps me chuckling to myself all throughout. It’s consistent, it flows well, the soundtrack is nice, the characters are funny and they can actually get a little heartwarming at times. On a scale of 1 to 5 gummy bears, with 5 gummy bears being the best, “The Royal Tenenbaums” gets 4 gummy bears.
