Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
It’s easy to forget now, but a new Wes Anderson film in 2009 was no sure bet.
Anderson and his partner in laconic twee comedy, Owen Wilson, popped onto the scene with the one-two punch of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, then landed a crossover hit in 2001 with The Royal Tenenbaums. A box-office hit, the inimitably odd Tenenbaums also garnered a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. But follow-ups The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited didn’t capture critics or audiences in the same way. Like one of his own protagonists, so often flung from grace after an auspicious start, Anderson seemed to flounder.
Many directors find themselves being pigeon-holed into one style and genre, and it is not uncommon for a filmmaker to respond to critical drubbings by taking hard left turns (as a recent example, after a string of high-profile disasters, M. Night Shyamalan pivoted into low budget horror and has been reborn critically and commercially). Wes Anderson did… the opposite of that. After criticism that his films were overly twee and stylized, he came back with Fantastic Mr. Fox, perhaps his most twee and stylized to date. With a stop motion animation style descended from Rankin-Bass and British animation, Fantastic Mr. Fox adapts Roald Dahl’s novel and finds Mr. Fox (George Clooney in prime Danny Ocean mode) at war with the detestable farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Anderson’s woodland zootopia is stuffed with recognizable voices, including Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, Jason Schwartzman as Mr. Fox’s son Ash, Bill Murray as Badger, and Willem Dafoe as a switchblade wielding rat.
Fantastic Mr. Fox didn’t make much of a dent with audiences during the busy holiday movie season, but it was a critical smash and Anderson doubled-down on his rekindled momentum with Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Now, he’s hard at work on another stop-motion film, Isle of Dogs. No one knows what will be in it but we can assume there will be dogs…and…maybe an isle or two, we don’t know.
But while we pass the time waiting for that Wes Anderson film, we can busy ourselves with THIS Wes Anderson film. Is Fantastic Mr. Fox still, um, fantastic? Let’s take a look! — Brendan
Next week’s pick:
It’s Barack Obama’s final week in office. Regardless about you feel personally about him or his radically different successor, there’s no question that we are in the middle of a massive shift in the political landscape of the United States. In honor of the President, we’re watching Barry on Netflix. — Austin
Our Guests
I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox from the first time I saw it in theaters. It has all the quirkiness of your typical Wes Anderson film, but in stop-motion form. While it is certainly an all-ages film, I hesitate to specifically label it as a children’s film. As in other Wes Anderson films, genres are meshed together so that we have a talking animal fable mixed into what amounts to Mr. Fox’s mid-life crisis along with something of a coming of age story for Mr. Fox’s son and nephew. Throughout all of those threads, Fantastic Mr. Fox demonstrates a very sharp wit — sometimes almost (but not quite) too clever for its own good, but more often than not laugh out loud funny. The cast is mostly the usual suspects of Wes Anderson regulars (including a hilarious turn by Willem Dafoe as a drawling Southern rat), along with a handful of newcomers including George Clooney who brings just a touch of Danny Ocean ego to the title character. These characters are brought to life with really fun old school stop motion animation which is made incredibly dynamic by some very creative cinematography. What strikes me most about Fantastic Mr. Fox is how its seemingly simple message of positive difference and individuality gives way to something like a commentary on consumerism, conformity, and subversiveness. I hadn’t watched Fantastic Mr. Fox in a while, and it was definitely a treat to see it again. Also, for the record, Petey’s song isn’t really that bad. Kind of catchy, actually. (@T_Lawson)
Brendan Agnew:
So…how did Anderson convince Fox to give him actual money for this movie?
Maybe Wes Anderson sold Fantastic Mr. Fox to someone as a kid’s film (it’s not…except when it definitely is?), or maybe he had someone figured it was worth it because of the case he could wrangle (which, yeah, is maybe his best) or perhaps there’s just some really good kompromat on someone that he stumbled onto — but the result, a stop-motion animated film that takes his handmade/dollhouse construction aesthetic makes it a literal part of the process, is full of the weird whimsy, inescapable sadness, and absolute madness that has cropped up in his other films. Not to mention the way his characters often can’t help but screw themselves over.
The way Mr. Fox’s nature is played as both a curse and a saving grace might be the heartstring of the film, providing both a rousing “let’s use our differences to solve an impossible problem” inspirational moment, and a near-heartbreaking exchange of “I love you, too, but…” from his wife the next, ending in a final shot reveal that’s equally funny and horrifying.
Fantastic Mr. Fox isn’t a “kid’s movie,” because it’s the sort of film a kid will learn too much of the right thing from, and that adults have never wanted to learn. So whoever cleared the checks for this, bless their cussing heart. (@BLCAgnew)
The Team:
When it became known that Wes Anderson would direct a stop motion film, it was widely wondered how his trademark style would translate, especially as rumors (which turned out to be false) indicated he wasn’t very involved or interested in the film’s creation. Could an animated film, particularly a children’s story that would presumably be the first to evade an R rating, really “be” a Wes Anderson film?
Turns out it’s maybe the most Wes Andersony thing he’s ever done. The familiar ensemble cast, character-driven humor, emotional core, family issues and a flawed father figure, and yes, the stylistic flourishes and symmetry — it’s all there. Anderson visited Dahl’s old haunts and was so influenced by his environment that they informed the style of the film. Turns out the rustic, pastoral English aesthetic is perfectly in keeping with his own vintage-flavored style. Who knew?
Hilarious writing and deadpan delivery make Fantastic Mr. Fox a delight, but I think what may in retrospect become its most appreciated strength is its edge of darkness, something that’s become less common of late for family fare. Future kids may come to appreciate it in the same way that my generation reveres Labyrinth or The Secret of Nimh. Something more thoughtful, mature, and even a little scary — than the pandersome and often moronic CGI cartoons that crowd the landscape of family entertainment. (@VforVashaw)
Wes Anderson is an interesting director in that he’s one of the few directors I’ve experienced liking less as I see more of his work. In fact, I really enjoyed several of his movies on first watch, yet with each watch liked them less. The exception to this rule is Rushmore, which I still find incredibly entertaining. With this in mind, I have not sought out his recent works in any particular way. I’ve caught some films and pieces of films in the past few years, but never all that intentionally. Thus, this was my first experience with The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
It was fine, but nothing to write home about. The animation, while unique was more often annoying than not. The script and dialogue were often irritating, as well. But, at the end, I left the experience with a pleasant feeling, thus giving it 3 stars in my Letterboxd and probably considering it the 2nd best of Wes’s mediocre catalog.
Of course, as noted above, if I watch it again, there’s a good chance I’ll like it less. (@ThePaintedMan)
I love Wes Anderson. I love stop motion animation. There are few authors alive or dead whose work speaks to me in quite the same primal way as Roald Dahl.
And yet…I don’t quite get this film. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a totally pleasant use of 90 minutes but the entire endeavor just feels so much thinner than I’ve come to expect from Anderson. The laughs aren’t as big, the melancholy doesn’t sting quite as much, and there’s no supporting character that I walked out of the film desperate entire spin-off about (compare this to, say, Grand Budapest Hotel, which had characters that didn’t even speak but who I would gladly watch an entire cinematic universe about).
I don’t know, this is one of those movies that I just never fully kindled to. It looks gorgeous, the trademark Anderson dialogue hums, the soundtrack is invigorating and fun…but I just never make the leap to full blow love like I do with his other pictures. Rewatches of Life Aquatic and Darjeeling have revealed new depths and qualities, but Fantastic Mr. Fox still strikes me as a pleasant little diversion without the substance that this great filmmaker usually brings.
I’m sorry America. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Get it at Amazon:
Fantastic Mr. Fox — [Blu-ray] | [DVD] | [Amazon Video]