January 4, 2002
Touchstone
Comedy
DVD
B
This is the only Wes Anderson movie I own, though I've seen others. At that, this Criterion edition was a gift. I liked the movie when it came out and I still like it. I admire the attention to detail and the offbeat sense of humor, and sense of everything else. But it's not really a movie I can warm up to. In fact, I probably like it better in pieces-- from the game closet to individual lines-- more than I do as a whole. Anderson wanted to make it a New York movie in a literary, almost fairytale, way, and so this is and is not the New York that was or was about to be shattered by September 11th. It is a very visual, almost theatrical movie, and yet it also feels like J.D. Salinger and John Irving collaborated on a reboot of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
Luke Wilson is almost unrecognizable here compared to in Legally Blonde, particularly when he's got long hair, a beard, and sunglasses. Gwyneth Paltrow is much better here than she was as Emma, with a very deadpan delivery. Bill Murray's role as Paltrow's husband, Raleigh St. Clair, is far from my favorite, but as always he adds something to the proceedings. I don't have Owen Wilson in any of my other movies, but it is interesting how he (in a script he cowrote with Anderson) plays a family friend, while Ben Stiller (in a curly wig and red jumpsuit) plays the other Tenenbaum child.
William Sturgis was Elliot's Analyst in Hannah and Her Sisters and is Franklin Benedict here. Andrew Wilson (older brother to Luke and Owen) was a School Guard in Never Been Kissed and plays both Farmer Father and Tex Hayward here. Kevin Kean Murphy, who's an Archaeologist here, would be an Interview subject in Kinsey. Lian Moy is a Patron here and would be a Student in School of Rock. Amir Raissi, who's one of Eli's Egyptian Friends, would be a dancer in Enchanted.
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