Stars: Anjelica Huston, Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Danny Glover, Bill Murray, Bill Murray

Director: Wes Anderson

Summary: Royal Tenenbaum makes contact with his family whom he abandoned twenty years earlier, telling them he has just six weeks to live...

In their youth, the Tenenbaums--an eccentric New York family--were extraordinary. They were all geniuses. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) was a successful litigator. His wife Etheline (Angelica Huston) raised their children to be ambitious, entrepreneurial, and creative--then published an acclaimed book about her child-rearing techniques. Adopted daughter Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) was a gifted playwright. Son Chas (Ben Stiller) was a masterful businessman with a taste for real estate. And the other son, Richie (Luke Wilson), was a natural tennis champ. However, when Royal packed up his life and left his wife and his family in a cloud of betrayal, everything fell apart. Twenty years later, the Tenenbaums are a dejected and alienated bunch, each having found that their early successes did not carry over into adulthood. When washed-up Royal learns that his distant wife Etheline, who has become an archaeologist, may remarry, he feigns illness as an excuse to reunite with his estranged family.
From Wes Anderson, director of RUSHMORE, this film is full of quirky comedy that will have audiences reeling and reflecting simultaneously. The brilliant script is impeccable with choppy, intentionally awkward language delivered with dry wit by the well-appointed (almost too good to be true) cast. Dramatic sets are emphasized by the film's masterful orchestration of scene changes and chapter separations. The photography beautifully captures a faded, vintage 1980s New York. And the eclectic soundtrack features much-loved tunes by Nico, The Velvet Underground, The Clash, and the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

Wes Anderson's satirical yet tender tragicomedy The Royal Tenenbaumsis a defiantly offbeat movie, but its sheer originality makes it a winner. As Philip Larkin famously said, "They fuck you up, your mum and dad". Well, it's Dad, the opulently named Royal Tenenbaum himself (Gene Hackman in twinkly mode), who gets all the blame here. The precocious achievements of the Tenenbaum offspring are amusingly documented: teen tycoon Chas (a perpetually snarly Ben Stiller), tennis star Richie (Luke Wilson, alienation personified in his Björn Borg get-up) and Margot--adopted and never allowed to forget it--a prize-winning playwright by ninth grade (Gwyneth Paltrow lurking under a ton of eyeliner and a sulky pout). Then there's Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), the kid from over the road who always wanted to be a Tenenbaum and nowadays makes his living writing trashy but successful Westerns.

After two decades of going their own way, to unfailingly disastrous effect, the Tenenbaums find themselves reunited in their old house, as idiosyncratic and illogical a place as the family itself, with Etheline Tenenbaum (touchingly played by Anjelica Huston) about to marry her accountant, Henry Sherman (Danny Glover). The action loops forward and backward, with the background detail on each character beautifully rounded out by narrator Alec Baldwin. This, and the device of dividing the film into chapters, gives it the feel of a fairy story, and like the best in the genre, it has a satisfying, if not entirely happy, resolution.

On the DVD:The Royal Tenenbaumscomes with extra features that really do add to the enjoyment of the film. These range from the whimsical (a gallery of all the fictitious book and magazine covers that involve the Tenenbaum family and a slide show of behind-the-scenes photos by set-photographer James Hamilton) to the enlightening (a 26-minute film about writer/director Wes Anderson, his ideas behind the movie and an insight into his way of working, which is illuminating particularly for the sheer detail of his vision--if he's a control freak, he comes across as a nice control freak). There are also brief interviews with the main players, excerpts from Anderson's annotated script pages and background details on the artwork that appears in the film by Miguel Calderon and Eric Chase Anderson (brother of Wes). Less than two minutes of deleted scenes is hardly exciting, though the offbeat humour of the "Peter Bradley Show" is a distinct plus. --Harriet Smith

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	The Criterion Collection, Scrapbook, The Peter Bradley Show, Trailers, With The Filmmakers Featurette, Cut Scenes, Eight Interviews With The Cast
Year:	2001
Release Date:	December 2, 2002
Runtime:	108 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	B E D 888589
Keywords:	Royal, Comedy, General, Tenenbaums
Genre:	Comedy