The Royal Tenenbaums is a film that makes you appreciate the
family you have even if you despise everyone in it. Wes Anderson' follow up to
Rushmore follows the lives of the Tenenbaum family, a rich successful family
that lives in a unusually big house. The patriarch of the family and forgotten
leader is Royal Tenenbaum, (played by Gene Hackman) a selfish father who left
his family years before and becomes broke after staying in a hotel for a number
of years and returns in hopes they’ll take him. Etheline,(Anjelica Houston) Royal's
wife becomes the leader of the family after Royal suddenly departs and
she left to stay at home with their three kids. All of their children are also
child prodigies, there's Chas (Ben Stiller), who was a financial whiz as a kid;
Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), who was adopted, and won a big prize for writing a
school play, and Richie (Luke WIlson), once a tennis champion at the age of 17.
All return home through out the film for
separate reasons including the father.
The beginning shot of the film includes the children sitting on
one end of the table while Royal sits across them on this long wooden table
that seems larger then normal. This shot is interesting because it gives you a
sense of how this film works, the three siblings staying together side by side
while they’re father is on the outside looking in, showing how they aren’t a
united family, the mother however in her first scene is shot with all the children
in the same shot all together on the screen like a family. I also noticed when
the film begins they describe the children and what made them prodigies and use
the camera to further the exposition of the story and further the background of
every character. Chas' room is built like a business building; he has his desk
set up a safety deposit box filled with money and financial magazines properly organized
on his wall. Margot's room is more eccentric its full of artifacts covering her
wall and a library of plays and model sets in her room giving you the idea that
she’s more artsy. Finally we are show Richie's room the tennis phenom that
paints murals of his sister and place all of them in a ballroom on his floor of
the house.
So Wes Anderson with just the use of his camera work gives you
background of the three main characters just by showing shots of each floor and
rooms. Wes also uses the art of the gaze in this film multiple times, including
having every character gaze into the camera in the opening credits as they’re
names are shown and the characters they play. Wes Anderson who wrote the film
with Owen Wilson delivers an art piece of a film that draws you in with the
eccentric scenery and the absurd family you luckily get to watch unravel in
front of our eyes only to come together in the end.
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