Review of Rushmore (1998) by Josh F — 21 Jun 2014

An intelligent film by Wes Anderson (and Owen Wilson from "Bottle Rocket") trying out his typical style that began to evolve in his career as an artistic director with good senses. It's in its own defining way a coming-of-age film for a little amount of time.

The film opens like it's behind the curtains, and we're at the titular private school. Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman at his acting debut) is an eccentric student with a unique characteristic of being the school's smartest scholar by overdoing elaborate extracurricular activities as his main focus than his studies and caring a little about his grades for some reason. He soon goes downhill when he fell in love with a teacher Ms. Cross (Olivia Williams), and started doing everything he can to catch her heart. But before that major distraction from his usual stuff, he befriended a company owner Mr. Blume (Bill Murray).

Mr. Blume wasn't having a good time such as having dissatisfactions about his company, and having frustrations upon his wife and spoiled sons. Max represents the positivity of Mr. Blume's life, until the two unfortunately started following this line against each other for the attraction of Ms. Cross: "all fair in love and war." So Mr. Blume represents the man Ms. Cross prefer than a youngster - the negativity side of Max's life: rejection and no appreciation, next to distraction. But instead, they only sabotage each other's luck, which led to nothing.

Jason Schwartzman made a really good debut for an actor with such performance he'd done in this film. Next to him is Bill Murray who also performed well.

"Rushmore" is a good treat like any other Wes Anderson films. (B+).