Cinema Nova 3/1/2010
I love films that eschew the easy way for something more adventurous. Whether they succeed or not, they always turn out to be interesting. I'm very pleased to report that Wes Anderson’s (Rushmore, The Darjeeling Limited) adaptation Roald Dahl’s classic Fantastic Mr. Fox is a successful unconventional film.
Mr Fox is a wily one who steals from three local meany farmers until they get jack of it and come after him and his family with diggers and dynamite. Burrowed deep and starving the family and other animals from the valley plan their escape and revenge.
The stop motion animation (a laborious and notoriously difficult medium and way out of circulation what with computers and all) looks spectacular and is completed by minutely detailed attention to the stunning design.
The cast are the usual line up for an Anderson film – Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Bill Murray (Ghostbusters), Owen Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums) and Anderson’s brother Eric. Add to that George Clooney and Meryl Streep and that’s a cast you can safely call all-star. They do a great job.
Where Anderson’s screenplay sticks to Dahl’s original story is where it’s strongest, but to fill the 87-minute running time, Anderson expanded the story. The less successful new elements show up his American-ness (giving Mr Fox a classic kind of revenge-of-the-little-guy edge) but the more successful bits (beefing up the roles of ancillary characters and filling out the animal’s world more completely) add wonderful depth and breadth to the story. Although flawed, Fantastic Mr. Fox is utterly, utterly charming.
