because you can't have too much entertainment... December 2001

They've Got Character
The Royal Tenenbaums Dir: Wes Anderson. Starring: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Billy Murray & Ben Stiller
Gosford Park Dir: Robert Altman. Starring: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Kristin Scott Thomas, Bob Balaban, Ryan Phillipe, Jeremy Northam, Richard E Grant, Derek Jacobi, Clive Owen & Kelly MacDonald

The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson's follow-up to the critically adored Rushmore is, above all else, an ambitious film. It opens with a hilariously detailed "prologue" accounting the rise and fall of three childhood geniuses and their accompanying fall from grace in early adulthood. The adopted daughter Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a playwright. Her beloved brother Richie (Luke Wilson) is a tennis champion. And the other Chas (Ben Stiller) is a financial wizard. Every major character in the film is either a writer or the subject of a book. The prologue introduces the characters from a tome penned by Etheline Tenenbaum and entitled "A Family of Geniuses." This book (and by extension the film itself) is a highbrow literary embodiment of every parent's tendency to dote on and boast of their child's accomplishments. In an amusing way you can see that Etheline is a surrogate for Wes Anderson. He's based his film on her family and the story begins with the fame surrounding them as a result of her book. Looking on from above as the director, Anderson exhibits the same clear eyed but obvious love towards his creation that Etheline shows for her children throughout the film. She is the author of the book and he the author of the film. Wes Anderson, the wunderkind young director, has set out to make an epic about a family that never was in a storybook Manhattan that never quite existed. To top it all off he's based it all, quite suitably given the literary nature of the family, on an imaginery book.

Thankfully, given the subject matter, the family in question is worthy of the intense fascination. You believe that books would be written about these people. Befitting its mock literary nature, the acting is heightened and stylized. The gifted ensemble all come out smelling like a roses. Gwyneth Paltrow, for example, playing the secretive and manically depressed Margot hasn't been this funny since Emma or this emotionally resonant since her breakthrough in Flesh and Bone a decade ago. Anjelica Huston as Etheline paints a layered portrait of a practical intelligent mother, deeply attached to her children. Gene Hackman is hilarious and predictably excellent as the ne'erdowell patriarch Royal who is attempting a return to the family's good graces. The minor roles are filled with impressive casting choices and smart flourishes as well. Most entrancing outside of the actual Tenenbaum family is best selling novelist Eli Cash, a lifelong friend of the Tenenbaum children. Eli is played by Owen Wilson in his second comedic triumph this year (following his hilarious work as hippie übermodel Hansel in Zoolander). He once again proves himself to be the most fully realized but underused comedic talent in tinseltown.

Though the screenplay is inventive and often hilarious, the film does meander a bit. It has the stop and go that are obvious results of its chapter formatting (each section of the film begins with a page from the imaginary book that it's based on) and like the characters whose lives it obsesses over it sometimes is too static. The climax, too, feels oddly unplanned and hectic. The entire film is busy with detail, but in the interrupted wedding sequence that closes out the film everything just sort of crashes together...its as if there were no way for the film to wrap up naturally. Wes Anderson must have forced himself to close the book. Maybe he wanted to continue on with them for another hour. I know I wouldn't have minded.

But regardless of perceived narrative shortcomings, what Anderson's film lacks in plot, it makes up for in the way of its 'look.' Everything within the realms of costuming and production design bear the mark of true inspiration, even genius. Karen Patch should take a bow for her risky not-quite period but evocative costuming work. This is one of those rare films where the costumes feel iconic and seem to be as character revealing as even the actors' performances. The art direction and production design (from Carl Sprague and David Wasco) are similarly dazzling. This has been a rich cinematic year for fantastical films that popped off the screen and embed themselves in your head. From the dizzying turn-of-the-century Paris conjured up in Moulin Rouge! to the Shire of Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings we've been bowled over several times. But the imagined world in this film is arguably just as impressive. With its slightly off-kilter Manhattan and its daring stabs at an eccentric universality it achieves a degree of magic that is barely, if ever, even attempted in contemporary film settings. Looking at the film is like gazing into the world's most precious and intricate diorama. Freeze any given frame in your mind and you're hypnotized by the incredible detail, the witty compositional jokes, the perfect decor. You could frame the movie stills and hang them on the wall.

That The Royal Tenenbaums flirts so closely with genius while never quite achieving it is perhaps fitting given its subject matter of failed talent. This is not a knock against the film. A film that frequently brushes with greatness is nothing to scoff at. You'll find more transcendent moments in this film than in hundreds of the films released this year combined. But like the sad gifted and memorable family around which it revolves, the film is achingly incomplete. Like Chas, Margot, and Richie the film is bruised but compelling, fragile yet resilient and unexpectly moving in its imperfections.

Gosford Park is a cinematic treat from one of America's most prolific and premiere auteurs, the septuagenarian legend Robert Altman. Those approaching with caution after last year's potential laden but deeply problematic Dr. T & The Women, are advised to breathe easy and proceed without hesitation. Shortly into Gosford Park's running time, your faith in this auteur's distinct and inimitable talents will be restored. This time around, Altman has thankfully chucked whatever was throwing him out of alignment. With Gosford Park, he is undeniably back at the top of his game.

This tale of a lengthy party and eventual murder at an English manorhouse in the late 1930s was originated in the minds of Altman and actor Bob Balaban (who also handled producing duties for this film). The two men gave the idea for this story to actor and fledgling screenwriter Julian Fellowes to flesh out. Great minds apparently think alike. This filmmaking trio, joined by an accomplished team of thespians, have crafted one of the most pleasurable films of the year. It's a film that both meets and exceeds expectations. In Altman's films we have come to expect a surplus of characters, overlapping dialogue, multiple plot threads, and high comedy. Those are all firmly in place here. The genres this particular film treads in - The British Upstairs/Downstairs comedy of manners and the Agatha Christie 'whodunnit?' -also come with expectations and character types that are exceedingly familiar. But what's particularly astonishing about Gosford Park is that, despite its timeworn elements and tropes, the film itself feels electrically alive. It's as if Altman and team had just discovered a whole new genre and style. They haven't done any such thing but for two plus hours the film works the masterful illusion that they have.

A good deal of the credit here must go to Julian Fellowes. His screenplay, teaming with participants, secrets, and subplots, wastes no time in introducing dozens of characters and developing the film's themes. Class structure and the end of an era in Britain are but two of the heavy issues wrapped up in the easy to swallow comic package. The more resonant theme that emerges from these two primary ideas is the desperate ways that people of all social and economic status cling to the little power that they have: Human nature is the same regardless of social status.

The wandering camera is as purposeful as any of the plotting characters. It never seems to be fruitlessly searching for something to grasp a hold of -a problem that occurs in Altman's weaker efforts. Nothing in this rich English manor house and its bustling inhabitants seems out of place or meandering. Despite all the precision and obviously careful planning, the movie feels as improvisational as the bulk of Altman's best work. The accomplished editing of Tim Squyres and the sophisticated and quip-filled script enhance Altman's already enormous skill at following several characters at once. Everything works in unison to find clever and accessible ways to make the complicated bi-level story structure (upstairs for guests / downstairs for servants) easy to follow. Some viewers may be disappointed in the way the plot revolves around a murder mystery which in the end is merely tossed aside, but I would advise the mystery fan to remember that Altman's films have never concerned themselves with story as much as character.

And oh, what characters this film has!

Think Soderbergh, Anderson, or Allen have high star-to-role ratios? Think again. Their numbers are paltry when it comes to Altman's latest film. Gosford Park features well over two dozen major roles. In some ways it's like Altman's British version of The Player (there's even a subplot about preproduction on a film). The difference here is that the parade of stars actually have substantial roles rather than cameo. Perhaps in gratitude to Altman for the opportunity of working together, they are all in top comic form. With this many personalities buzzing around, it can at first be hard to delineate who is who. The genre helps somewhat in that it comes with familiar character 'types' but the script and the performances flesh out the characters to such a precise degree that once you get use to the lightning quick pacing, it's fairly easy to distinguish the players from one another. In most films you're lucky to get one or two memorable characters and you sort of accept the people swirling around them as part of the storyline. In this film it's hard to pick a favorite. Forced to choose I could only narrow it down to five: Helen Mirren as Mrs Wilson, the perfect servant and perfectly unhappy head maid, Maggie Smith, in a pitch perfect comedic role as Countess Trentham the snobby aunt, Bob Balaban and Jeremy Northam as the outsiders and guests of honor, an American movie producer and a real British film star from the period, respectively). And last but not least, Kristin Scott Thomas as Lady Sylvia, is a treat as an angry and sexually bored wife and the hostess at the heart of the gathering.

One of the elitist joys of film fanaticism in general and in this film in particular is the chance to watch a beloved director return to form. All auteurs hit rough patches, but with the best ones you maintain faith that they'll regain their footing. Altman's oeuvre is filled with ups and downs, but regardless of the valleys, his peaks are uniquely his own. And like Lynch, who also enjoyed quite a renaissance this year, Altman work is so distinctive that he spawned an adjective that brings his forte immediately to mind. At seventy-six Robert Altman must have taken some form of artistic viagra. When approaching a British period piece one can usually expect a bit of fussiness. Not so with Gosford Park. In spite of its uppercrust setting, the film plays and feels loose and off the cuff, but never random. The frame is rarely static, with characters continually passing in and out. No movie this year approaches it in terms of its nimbleness and fluidity in mixing character, theme and wit. In Gosford Park the characters are both story and theme. Leaving the theater I was overwhelmed with the amount of detail and richness that had been jammed into one movie. I'm happy to report that it's Altman's best film in decades. Gosford Park offers the patient and attentive filmgoer pleasure in abundance.

-Nathaniel

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