FANTASTIC MR FOX (2009)

Posted by Stephen Jannise

Earlier this year, Daniel and I had a discussion about Pixar’s latest film, Up. He felt that the film too often panders to children, and that Pixar’s proven abilities for storytelling and character development are wasted whenever the film allows for childish humor or action sequences. I feel, on the other hand, that it’s important for children to have access to the kinds of emotions and ideas that Pixar films often feature, and that most of these pre-teenage children, particularly these days, need a joke here and some action there if we have any chance of convincing them to pay attention to the more mature moments (not to mention the fact that I believe most of the jokes in Up are quite funny and the action scenes quite exciting).

However, when it comes to Fantastic Mr. Fox, the new film by Wes Anderson, I’m afraid I have to agree with Daniel.

The films of Wes Anderson are beloved by both Daniel and myself. I’ll never forget my first experience with a Wes Anderson film. In my senior year of high school, having received The Royal Tenenbaums in the mail from Netflix, I put it in my DVD player late one night, expecting just to watch the first few minutes before giving in to my sleepiness. After the wholly unique and wildly hilarious introductory sequence, I was wide awake and ultimately watched the film all the way through, trying not to wake up my parents with raucous laughter. “Who is this Wes Anderson, and are all his films this good?” I wondered. Eventually, I would see his previous two films, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, on DVD and his following two films, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited, in theaters, thoroughly enjoying every one of them. Consider me a fan, a big fan.

A portrait that, I think, defined the decade of filmmaking to come.

So, naturally, I was looking forward to Anderson’s journey into stop-motion animation with Mr. Fox, but, like Daniel, I feel that, though it’s certainly not a bad film, Mr. Fox represents a wasted slot in Anderson’s filmography. In his live-action films, Anderson has exhibited a desire to control the emotional reactions of the audience himself, asking his actors for minimal facial and bodily expressions (or none at all), preferring to let his dialogue and placement of his characters within the frame tell the story. It seems quite ironic, then, that in Mr. Fox, Anderson seems less in control than in his previous efforts, considering that A.) he ought to be able to control these stop-motion figurines more easily than his human actors, and B.) animated faces are often criticized for being expressionless when compared to human faces. And yet, in this film, these talking animals seem to wrest control away from Anderson, with faces that somehow move more freely and with more emotion than Anderson’s human faces ever have.

Cut! What's with that glimmer in your eye and that smile on your lips?

So, for those of us who are intimately familiar with Anderson’s work, this film hardly feels like an Anderson film. By allowing these animals to smile and wink etc., Anderson seems to be relying on more traditional methods of involving the viewing audience emotionally, which seems, despite all the hard work clearly put into this film, lazy by Anderson’s standards. As I said though, the snappy dialogue and clever shot selection that defines Anderson’s work is still mostly present throughout the film, albeit, again, toned down for a younger viewing audience (fuck is rather annoyingly replaced with cuss throughout the film, which comes to reflect just how exasperating it can be for an adult viewer to watch a movie that is holding back for the kids in the audience). We arrive at some of the same conclusions as Anderson’s previous films but through a more traditional and thus less challenging aesthetic journey.

While this is a fine film that most other directors would love to claim as their own, and while I still believe that filmmakers such as those at Pixar who are in the “children’s film” business should keep doing what they are doing, I feel that Mr. Fox represents sacrificed time for us older Anderson fans. We had to wait two years for this film and who knows how much longer before he gets around to making another genuine Wes Anderson film. You kids better cussing enjoy this one.

P.S. Stephanie Zacharek writes in her Salon.com review that “”Fantastic Mr. Fox” could turn out to be the one movie Wes Anderson naysayers end up loving, and the one his loyal fans treat as a lesser accomplishment, a trifle.” Since most film critics tend to hate Anderson’s films but have unanimously loved Mr. Fox, I think she’s onto something.