Recent release reviewed!!!!: Fantastic Mr. Fox

FANTASTIC MR FOX (2009)

Director. Wes Anderson

Written by: Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach

You know you're watching an idiosyncratic movie when a stop-motion human character, who is quite obviously Jarvis Cocker, is told off for "bad song-writing". Such is the spirit of Wes Anderson's oddball version of Roald Dahl's classic children's book. Any staunch fans expecting a faithful adaptation should really save their money and their blood pressure. This is not Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox. It's Wes Anderson's Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox, and either you embrace that, or you're going to have an infuriating 90 minutes.

The plot of this film? Well, Mr. Fox (George Clooney) is having a mid-life crisis. Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) just wants the best for her family. Their 12-year old (in Fox years) son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) is having difficulty reconciling his physique with his athletic ambitions. Matters are made worse for Ash when his athletic, meditation-practicing, cousin Kristofferson comes to stay. Meanwhile, Mr. Fox has set his sights on robbing the three mean local farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean (Michael Gambon). The farmers aren't going to take this theft lying down, however, and lay seige to Foxy's tree. Throw in a dim-witted but loyal opossum called Kylie, Fox's lawyer Badger (Bill Murray), and a psychotic Southern rat (Willem Dafoe), and that's the story in a nutshell.

Essentially, it's a Wes Anderson film. This is made abundantly clear in the opening seconds as we see the familiar bold yellow chapter headings, and chapter plots laid out in the book. The Fox family seem could be the Zissous or the Tenenbaums with only a few minor tweaks and changes. Meryl Streep even sounds a lot like Anjelica Huston! The "crazy eyes" from Life Aquatic are lovingly recreated ad nauseam. And the Anderson regulars are (mostly) all here, with Schwartzman, Murray, Dafoe, Gambon, Owen Wilson in a small role as Ash' gym coach, and Adrien Brody in a smaller role as a fieldmouse. On the villainous front, Gambon has a great time voicing Bean, the nastiest of the three farmers. Meanwhile, Dafoe gets to do a voice that sounds like Hannibal Lecter's impression of Clarice Starling while calling Mrs. Fox the town tart. Both are alternately funny and frightening. The family issues are given more of a foreground than they ever were in Dahl's book, but this is what Anderson is good at. And it works. Mr. and Mrs. Fox's relationship is handled sensitively, perhaps too sensitively for a children's movie. At one point Mrs. Fox tells her husband "I love you. But I shouldn't have married you."

But Anderson is also clearly enjoying subverting the ususal expectations for a kids' film. Around halfway through, Mrs. Fox gives Ash the "We're all different" speech, concluding "And isn't there something fantastic about that?" As she leaves, Ash sniffily tells her "For you, maybe. I want to be an athlete." There's also the "cussing" issue. Anderson has replaced every swearword with "cuss", leading to some creative dialogue. "You cussin' with me?" "The cuss you are!" "What the cuss was that?", "What a clustercuss", etc. That's not to mention the funny twists on redemption "He redeemed himself!" and bullying ("Are you a bully? You're beginning to sound a lot like a bully.").

I must admit that I've got no idea what children would make of this film. I'm always wary of saying that adult humour goes over kids' heads, but Anderson's sense of humour is so odd and particular that it probably will miss the children's funny bone fairly often. That said, the interplay between Ash and Kristofferson is fun, and Fox's dimwitted by well-meaning sidekick Kylie is funny enough for the little 'uns too. With regards to the animation, it's different enough to stand out. The stop motion is pretty seamless, and there's a hand-made quality to the animals that is very appealing.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is both a pleasingly sharp alternative to a lot of the kids' movies out there at the moment, and another excellent movie from Wes Anderson. Do you like Wes Anderson movies? Then watch this.