Tüddelbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums

Since I am now forced to study for the possibly most boring exam I am going to have this whole year, I will be motivating myself with a comparably pleasant activity: Commenting on yet another great film.

I have decided to watch “The Royal Tenenbaums” because it’s one of the movies in the schedule at Movie of the Week. Unfortunately, I still have not seen “Requiem for a Dream” yet and I am not very interested in watching “Wristcutters”. The concept of the website is great, but I am a little underwhelmed by the line-up starting April. Well, I am in no position of whining, of course.

After totally fallen in love with “Little Miss Sunshine”, “The Royal Tenenbaums” is great on a completely different level. It is an ode to what we call family as well, but its comedy is much sharper and blacker than “Little Miss Sunshine”s. Comparing these two movies is rather difficult and probably inappropriate anyways. Of course, both start with a dysfunctional and end with a loving and close family, but the characters are fundamentally different.
A propos family, I find it very interesting how French films tend to either outright ignore family or disassemble them while Hollywood and the likes prefer to take a more optimistic look at this societal institution we all love and hate.

I don’t even have a favorite character though, it’s mostly the ensemble and the way they interact with each other. Perhaps I do dislike Margot for randomly mistreating her husband though; on the other hand, I can somehow identify myself with her. She’s quite a great emo character and her cynism is surprisingly understandable.

Unlike Little Miss Sunshine, I actually think that there is quite a lot to discover at “The Royal Tenenbaums”, let alone the greatness of its actors (Gwyneth Paltrow is actually pretty good, she’s just too… blonde?) This site for example has quite some inspiring observations, although it’s just noting some minor details about the film, it’s still interesting. Most other websites are just praising at how great the humour in the film is – and that probably is indeed its biggest strength. You have to like that type of black humour and be able to detect its wittiness, and then you would come to like a character like Royal just as much as his grandsons do.

Another appeal of “The Royal Tenenbaums” is its unusual and slightly artificial setting. Everything just cries black comedy into your face and it clearly looks like everything is supposed to be at the place it is. Although I hate it when characters wear the same outfit throughout a movie, in this case, it makes perfect sense. Perhaps Wes Craven actually is an interesting director?

It’s been 7 years since I have seen a poster of it at the CinemaxX Potsdamer Platz in Berlin for the first time and I still remember how I was intrigued by that poster. I am glad to have finally watched the film now and I especially recommend it to anyone who likes the cast, because it is in a film like this that they can show their brillancy. (Except Bill Murray though, it’s disappointing how he only got a silly character and just a bit of screentime.)