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Film Review: The Royal Tenenbaums

By Siobhan Welch

Wes Andersen’s The Royal Tenenbaums is a refreshing departure from most of the comedies made today with Generation X-ers in mind. Many of these comedies star Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson (Zoolander, Starsky and Hutch) who also appear in this film. Audiences will find, however, that unlike these other movies, screenwriters Andersen and Wilson do not rely on the easy joke, slapstick comedy, or bathroom humor in order to get a laugh.

Andersen uses a storybook motif to frame the events of the film. Narrated by Alec Baldwin, we are taken through a prologue, eight chapters, and an epilogue, as if we are watching the enactment of a novel. The film, though, seems to be more like a dark comic strip, come to life, one that most likely would appear in The New Yorker. While the setting of the film is never said to be New York (the cars’ license plates read “Department of Streets”), the setting is very obviously New York, down to the Manahattanesque brownstone in which the Tenenbaums live.

The film follows the Tenenbaums, a family that once might have been described as “quirky,” but now, in the age of Dr. Phil, would most likely be called “dysfunctional.”  Royal (Gene Hackman) and Etheline (Angelica Huston) have been divorced for seventeen years, although our omniscient narrator informs us that the divorce was never legal. They have three children: Chas (Ben Stiller), Richie (Luke Wilson) and Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow). Through a series of flashbacks often portrayed in montages punctuated by an ironic soundtrack, we learn these children were prodigies. (Etheline, an archaeologist, writes a book called Family of Geniuses). Little Chas is a Type A CEO-in-training who breeds Dalmatian rats and deals in real estate; Richie Tenenbaum is a champion tennis player, and Margot (who is adopted) is a budding playwright. Add Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), the odd Eddie Haskell-like neighbor, and you have a full house of eclectic people.

Cut to the present: All three Tenenbaum children are miserable and seem to have fallen from their glories in childhood. Chas is now a paranoid widower raising two young boys Ari and Uzi (who look disturbingly like Chas clones), and conducts elaborate fire drills in the middle of the night. Richie “The Baumer,” lost an important championship a few years back and is now sailing an ocean-liner, lovelorn over his adopted sister, Margot. And Margot, now married to a neurologist-writer (Bill Murray), spends most of her time locked in the bathroom, soaking in the tub, watching a tiny TV tied to the radiator, and chain-smoking. For reasons of their own, they all return, one by one, to their childhood home. Chas tells Etheline that he thinks it will be safer there and that he doesn’t have adequate safety measures in his own house. “But, there are no sprinklers here, either,” she tells him, puzzled.

Though we get three- dimensional characterizations of all of the children, this film is really about Royal (presumably named for “Royal pain in the ass”) who upon entering old age, longs to connect with the family he never really had. At one point in the movie he asks, “Can’t somebody be a shit their whole life and then try to repair it?” In order for him to make amends, he decides he must gain access to his old home. The solution? He fakes having stomach cancer and tells his family he has six weeks to live.

With the entire family back under one roof, the characters’ neuroses take over and it is from this tension that much of the comedy and drama in the film originate. The children seem to revert to their childhood personas; for example, Chas mopes around, reminiscent of an angst ridden adolescent, Richie spends much of his time in a tent set up in his bedroom (the walls are decorated with childlike portraits – all of Margot), while Margot sneaks up to the roof for cigarette breaks (she has been smoking since age twelve and no one knows). It is as if these characters are stuck in time, which adds to the comic strip effect Andersen is trying to evoke.

Like characters in comic strips (or The Addams family, or The Simpsons), their costumes never change. Chas is stuck in a red Adidas jogging suit; Richie wears a suit that looks awkward over his tennis uniform and a sweatband; Margot sports a Prada mink coat over her Izod T-shirt dresses. The various montages used to separate or emphasize scenes add to this illustrative effect. The soundtrack is also well used. Most of the songs are from the sixties which give the film a nostalgic mood, with music by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison and Jackson Browne.

What Andersen shoots for is a dark comedy that relies on wit and eccentric characters. For the most part, his aim is dead on. Apart from an overly dramatic scene in which one of the characters tries to kill himself, complete with a razor blade, bloody bathroom, and a trip to the emergency room, the film never sinks to sentimentality or cheesiness – traits often apparent in recent box office successes. The dialogue is realistic and doesn’t sound forced. Often the humor is buried in throwaway lines. For example, upon learning that Richie is in love with Margot, Eli Cash tells him, deadpan, “She’s married, you know.” Then, as an afterthought – “And she’s your sister.”

Overall, the film is funny and ironic. Rather than trying to make sense of it all, the potential movie-goer would do well to watch it for the pure entertainment. It makes sense in that it makes no sense at all.  Even with the dark humor and “taboo” issues like death, drug addiction and incest, the film manages to achieve a certain poignancy, thanks to honest performances by all of the principal cast members and an even more honest script.

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