The Royal Tenenbaums

Sprawl makes "The Royal Tenenbaums" a worse film than its predecessor, "Rushmore," but what a beautiful, absorbing sprawl it is. Luke Wilson and Wes Anderson's script is full of dreamlike detail and angular, oblique characters and a kind of humor that results from ordinary things happening to extraordinary people.

But while these same virtues informed "Rushmore," in that film they only had to serve three characters; here they must serve seven or eight, and furthermore must withstand a wealth of visual invention that often threatens to overwhelm what is actually happening in the movie. The resulting film achieves beauty many times but is unable to sustain it with the same sweet joy as "Rushmore." "The Royal Tenenbaums" often feels overripe with its profusion of interesting things, and gets lost trying to navigate the various personal troubles of its characters with some amount of grace. In that sense only, it is a disappointment.

All the same, "The Royal Tenenbaums" touches beauty and even profundity more than almost any other film released this past year. The story takes place in 2000, because we see a tombstone with that death date on it, but the visual idioms are mixed from all four of the decades previous with a tender care and discerning eye that border on astounding. And, as usual, Anderson and Wilson have assembled a soundtrack from the 60s and 70s, which both beautifies and contributes to the delicious chronological confusion. The dialect is pure 2000, however, with lovely words such as "balling" thrown in for occasiona china-breaking effect. It also is elevated by its visual and musical surroundings; rather than in a David Mamet film, where the words seem to explode, words here seem to fall softly but ripple, casting an intricate pattern over the words previously spoken and the words to come.

Some of the actors can't break through the haze; Ben Stiller appears bewildered throughout the movie, and Danny Glover cannot make his role into anything more than window dressing. But Luke Wilson's performance is sharp and involved, first communicating primarily with body language and then primarily with his eyes, while Gwynneth Paltrow's raccoon-like eye makeup forces her to stop flirting her way through the role, as she does in most of her other films, and she delivers (I never thought I would say this) an impeccable performance.

But the reason to see this film, if none of the preceding has convinced you, is Gene Hackman, having a ball as prodigal patriarch Royal Tenenbaum. His blustery but good-hearted manipulation and zest for life, both unimpaired by what may be physical deterioration, slash through the enigmatic ennui of the characters around him and make the film crackle with energy whenever he's onscreen. Old actors who know every trick are in some ways the best kind, and Anderson and Wilson made their best decision in casting him and letting him push all the buttons.

I had been trying for months to figure out how to write a review in this style before I wrote this one. I really felt like I had a new arrow in my reviewing quiver to hit the target of enlightening, stylish criticism. Then I only used it two other times while I was at Maryland, because it takes a while to write properly. I hope to use it more now that I'm writing to personally imposed deadlines.

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