THEY'VE GOT CHARACTER

by
Nathaniel Rogers
of
The Film Experience

The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson's follow-up to his critically adored Rushmore is, above all else, an ambitious film. It opens with a hilariously detailed "prologue" accounting the rise of three childhood geniuses and their eventual 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. The third sibling, Chas (Ben Stiller) is a financial wizard. (It would seem that just about 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 her 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.

The wunderkind director has set out to make an epic about a family that never was, in a storybook Manhattan that never quite existed, and based on a book that was never written. 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, and the gifted ensemble all excel in their roles.

Gwyneth Paltrow, 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 paints a layered portrait of a practical, intelligent mother, deeply attached to her children. Gene Hackman is hilarious as the ne'er-do-well 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 is best selling novelist Eli Cash, a lifelong friend of the Tenenbaum children, 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 a stop-and-go quality - a result 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 is sometimes 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. It's 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 its "look." Everything within the realms of costume 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 clothes feel iconic, and 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 pop 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 marvelous. With its slightly off-kilter Manhattan and its daring stabs at an eccentric universality, the picture achieves a degree of magic that is barely, if ever, even attempted in contemporary film settings. Looking at this movie 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 film 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 it. A movie that frequently brushes with greatness is nothing to scoff at. You'll find more transcendent moments in this film than in most of the pictures 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 Royal Tenenbaums 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 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, and is once again at the top of his game.

The tale of a lengthy party and eventual murder at an English manor house in the late 1930s originated in the minds of Altman and actor Bob Balaban (who also handled producing duties). They gave the idea to actor and fledgling screenwriter Julian Fellowes to flesh out. Joined by an accomplished team of thespians, they proceeded to craft one of the most pleasurable films of the year.

It's a movie 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-style "whodunit" - also come with familiar expectations and character types. What's astonishing about Gosford Park is that, despite its time-worn elements and tropes, it 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, of course, but for two-plus hours the film works the masterful illusion that they have.

A good deal of the credit must go to Fellowes. His screenplay, teeming 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. No element of this rich English manor house with 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 that 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 what characters! Do you think Soderbergh, Anderson, or Allen have high star-to-role ratios? Their numbers are paltry compared to what Altman has here. Gosford Park features well over two dozen major roles. In some ways it's like a British version of Altman's The Player. (There's even a subplot about preproduction on a film.) The difference is that the stars actually have substantial roles rather than cameos. 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's who. The genre helps somewhat in that it comes with familiar "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 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 finally, Kristin Scott Thomas giving her best performance in years as Lady Sylvia, an angry and bored wife who is the gathering's hostess.

One of the elitist joys of film fanaticism 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 David Lynch, who also enjoyed quite a renaissance this year, Altman work is so distinctive that he has 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 here. In spite of its upper crust setting, the film plays and feels loose and off the cuff, yet 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. I'm happy to report that it's Altman's best film in decades, offering the patient and attentive filmgoer pleasure in abundance.

©2002 Nathaniel Rogers
CineScene