The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Review

 

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums follows Royal Tenenbaum, who fakes a cancer diagnosis in order to get closer to his estranged wife and kids. 

Say what you will about Wes Anderson but his films have always been so oddly reassuring in their sincerity. He’s a filmmaker with such a distinct style, one that I thoroughly love. The subtle pastels, picture perfect blocking/set design, and rhythmically symmetrical style of directing blends so well with his writing here, complementing each other beautifully. He tackles so much in The Royal Tenenbaums, with family and the glaring faults and imperfections that come with such a word, holding a lot of weight. The parent looking to make up for lost time (supposedly), the kids who want nothing to do with him, but making honest connections out of situations that weren’t sincere to begin with. It’s refreshing because it isn’t perfect. Their family, like yours and mine, aren’t perfect and most of the movie builds upon their failures in life and how it has defined them into adulthood; even somewhat defining them to the very end. Those failures are muted because before, they had no one and in time they had what they always needed, each other. 

There’s also an ironic poetry to Royal’s passing, with him wanting to bring everyone together through a fake diagnosis, inadvertently accomplishing that goal through his failure. Thus making way for his family to actually connect and be together for his actual death.

We get a huge cast of A-listers, starring Gwenyth Paltro, Ben Stiller, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, and Luke Wilson. The cast, which for its size is hard, is actually really personable and I loved how they each grow into better versions of their fucked up selves, something that wouldn’t be possible without Hackman’s Tenenbaum. And as weird as it sounds, I was happy that Wilson (Luke) and Paltro’s characters (though siblings; step) found a peace within each other because their awkwardly perfect chemistry was heartwarming to watch. 

The Royal Tenenbaums, directed by Wes Anderson, is a rather sweet film that is connected by underlying tragedy. It’s something that, for the untrained eye, is barely noticeable. It makes a comedy out of it’s character’s fears, failures, and shortcomings, masking them with overwhelming melancholy, but never making light of them. And yet through it all, especially as an adult, you yearn for even the slightest inkling of the familial connection that the Tenenbaum’s posses by the film’s end. 

8.9/10