In Theaters: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Movieline Score:

Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) is a natty fellow in the grass whose shrunken corduroy suit is surely a model of Anderson's own; our first glimpse of him doing his morning calisthenics in the opening scene sets the tone of absurdly pleasing visuals and unalloyed good fun that prevails throughout. In long-shot the look is picture book perfect (if picture book flat), ever conscious of framing and silhouette; in the frequent close-ups (some of them startlingly intimate, to-camera exchanges) Mr. Fox and Co. are marvelous both as artisanal specimens and fully inhabited, three-dimensional characters; in fact the first pleasure complements the second and vice versa.

The Fox family is living comfortably at #1 Bramble on Shrub, an address that is one of a multitude of freeze-frame details (later a scoreboard for a game called "Whack Bat" reads "HOME vs. STRAY"; an unidentified rabbit swigs a soda in the far corner of the screen, perhaps the same bunny who later, with typical inexplicability, crosses himself in Latin). Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), a former hellcat now living the life of a respectable matriarch, keeps Mr. Fox, a local columnist, fed and their son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) more or less in line. Mr. Fox, however, is looking for more out of life, and orchestrates a return to form that involves thieving and bandit hats; his mid-life crisis is summed up lightly ("Who am I? What does it mean to be a fox?"), and really, what else is there to say? When Mrs. Fox confronts him about stealing from the local trio of dastardly farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean, his defense is no less a mixture of delight and regret for being obvious: "I do it because I'm a wild animal."

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But these wild animals also experience filial inadequacy, as in a narrative thread (added by Anderson and his co-writer Noah Baumbach) that finds Ash disconnected from his high-flying dad, then jealous of his golden child cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson). Both the writing and the voicing of Ash's character are a highlight; Schwartzman once again hits the duo's downbeats with an uncanny, zen precision that lifts Ash out of stock downer-teen territory. "You're supposed to be my lab partner," Ash says to a cute schoolmate who is distracted by Kristofferson's way with a beaker. "I am your lab partner," she replies. "No you're not. You're disloyal." Just as an observation like "How can the train be lost, it's on rails" benefited from Schwartzman's unself-conscious, bemused and yet deeply inquisitive delivery, here he telegraphs Ash's misplaced grief and still gets the laugh.

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Comments

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  • Rico Timm says:

    Just figured I share...since the school year is now here and there is bound to be some bordom that is involved. 🙂

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