The Royal Tenenbaums

(2001)

It is tempting to look back at the early work of directors who have become arch baroque pastiches of themselves in the past few decades and see it as the beginning of the end. This applies most to two different directors called Anderson. Leaving aside Paul Thomas, Wes highlighted many of what would become his worst tendencies in THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, such as an undue maudlin erupting from a sea of cold and mechanical behavior, over-reliance on needle-drop music cues and montages, and ultra-violence that pretends not to be schlock. Whether it is the sheer forces of the performances – including a career-best leading man turn from Gene Hackman, who’s on-set grumpiness is both palpable and a thing of beauty – or a delicate attention to subtle notes of humanity as each of us know it in the deadpan character creations that later becomes forgotten, the director is still functioning at an incredibly high level here. The bloodshed is ornamental for the characters rather than us as an audience, and that makes a huge difference, whether it is the ritual of suicide or an impromptu consecutive stabbing by an assailant-cum-manservant. Anderson is still in a phase where he allows the rhythm of scenes to establish themselves before re-assembling them in his photo-montage fashion, a continuity that lets dramatic work speak for itself from actors that can create and hold cinematic space. It is dry rather than dead, and that distinction is where the hope, which seems synthetic in later efforts, resides strongly.