Review of Captain Fantastic (2016) by Glenn G — 30 Dec 2016

TRAGIC BUS - My Review of CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (3 Stars).

Ah, December. It's the time where we all collect our thoughts and reflect on the past year. For me, however, it's when I catch up on screeners of films I missed when they were in theaters. Besides, I'm not quite ready to let 2016 go, considering what's ahead, and this is coming from someone who considers it one of the worst years on record. Besides losing too many pop culture icons to name, and besides the outcome of the elections (which, mind you, happened on my birthday), 2016 sucked for me personally. I fell in love in January and got dumped in April, so the remainder of the year consisted of mending a broken heart.

On the bright side, I finished two scripts, enjoyed wonderful friendships, cherished my doggy, and breathed a sigh of relief that all of my brothers and sisters are still with us, especially two family members who faced health crises and managed to turn things around. Oh, and I saw a lot of movies, some of them great.

They can't all be great, however, which may explain why I resisted seeing CAPTAIN FANTASTIC until now. It's not a bad movie. In fact, the acting, directing, and cinematography are all wonderful, but the entire film feels like a compromise. I felt at odds with it as often as I enjoyed it.

Viggo Mortensen plays Ben, a father of six children, who lives way off the grid with them somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Home schooled and wiser beyond their years, the children hunt for their own food and value the words of Noam Chomsky. Supermarkets and churches just aren't their jam. When they receive news that their mother, who suffered from bipolar disorder, committed suicide, the family packs into their bus to crash her funeral, much against the wishes of their grandfather (Frank Langella). The rest of the film traces what happens when these two worlds collide.

Writer/director Matt Ross, who also excels as an actor on SILICON VALLEY, understands family dynamics and how the world would look to people who have been shielded from it for so long. The scene in which the children cry over news of their mother rings so true and breaks your heart. His cinematographer, Stéphane Fontaine (ELLE, THE PROPHET), brings a sun-dappled, 70s glow to everything, gorgeously enveloping the film in a hazy, hippy vibe.

Mortensen, who, for me, has always been a fairly reticent actor, beautifully connects with his role and gives a truly forceful, commanding performance. Under the laid back surface, he reveals the stern heart of a Marxist. Ben is awash in contradictions, one moment offering pearls of wisdom and the next, he's pretty much abusing his kids. I kept wondering the whole time where he gets his money. Gas for a bus ain't cheap folks!

The family makes a pit stop on the way to the funeral by visiting Ben's sister (Kathryn Hahn), brother-in-law (Steve Zahn) and their annoying, entitled kids. Hahn does a perfect slow burn as she tries to cope with her brother and how he has chosen to raise his children. It's my favorite sequence in the film, mostly because of the caliber of the actors involved.

And then.....ugh. Perhaps in an attempt to explain how they subsist, Ben takes his brood on a little shoplifting trip. His "stick it to the man" mantra rings hollow here. Yes, his children are taught how to survive in the world, how to eat healthy foods, and how to develop critical thinking, but HE TAKES THEM SHOPLIFTING!! It's very difficult to move past this without wanting to stop the film and say, "Yeah, I'm kinda done here".

But I kept watching. Honestly, it's all very well done, with Langella doing very good work. Man, with this and his performance in THE AMERICANS, I truly think he's even better at this stage of his life than any other. Ann Dowd also offers empathetic support as his wife, and Miss Pyle, in a too brief scene, offers up one of the best side eyes of the year. George MacKay, so good in PRIDE, plays the eldest son, who knows so much about the world, except how to socialize in it. His marriage proposal scene is worth the price of admission alone.

But then there's that ending. Up until then, the film has done a fantastic job of presenting various points of view on child rearing, and everyone has a point. Yet, we're supposed to feel some sort of victory by what happens on that bus late in the movie. Since every side had their say, I wondered whose side Matt Ross had ultimately taken, and why. This is especially true of the coda, Not only is it about compromise, but it feels compromised. I sat there with so many questions, most of which I could see getting an answer from the filmmaker that basically said, "I don't know. Figure it out for yourself.".

Is it possible to enjoy a film about an irresponsible parent who not only endangers his kids' lives but encourages them to be armed criminals? I guess so. But I'm calling Child Protective Services and hoping that Jacob Tremblay from ROOM is their social worker.