Fantastic Mr. Fox is nominated for the Best Animated Feature category of the Oscars. This is a film that I was afraid to watch for several reasons and also the one in which I had the most hope for. Allow me to explain. Growing up I was a book worm and there were a few books that were particularly special to me. Island of the Blue Dolphins, Where the Red Fern Grows, Shiloh, and Matilda. If you ever get bored go and pick up any of these books, I'm sure they are an easy read now and the stories still hold up, especially Island of the Blue Dolphins which is based on a true story. After reading Matilda I had read like 6-10 of Roald Dahl's books and that author was as special to me as Shel Silverstein. He also wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Now, I never read Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I am extremely familiar with Roald Dahl's flair and every movie I've seen based off his work have failed miserably to capture his brand of wimsy. So I was scared walking into this film.
It just so happens that Wes Anderson, the director is pretty much tied for the best director in my mind with Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are, Being John Malkovich), Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep), and David Fincher (Panic Room, Fight Club, Seven, The Game, Zodiac, Benjamin Button). BTW, I recommend all of those films. In fact if I had to sit down and honestly pick what my favorite American film, considering all Oscar catagories, could be, Royal Tennenbaums (Anderson) would likely be #1, but it is a close tie with Stranger than Fiction. Anderson Focuses on his characters and has said in several interviews that is where the scripts come from. He gets an idea for a character and writes up profiles almost like they do with serial killers and the story just writes itself. His films have a distinct visual tone and like all the other directors I listed, he creates his own world almost like he were an animator. Well, he finally quit walking the line and crossed into animation with Fantastic Mr. Fox and made a stop motion film based off a book by my most beloved childhood author and casted Meryl Streep, Jason Shwartzman, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson (always fantastic with a good director), George Clooney, and Willam DeFoe.
Less than 5 minutes in, my affection for his work was quickly re-affirmed. The stop-motion was so insanely beautiful that I quickly remembered why I see Anderson as a visionary. The film industry has taken a turn in the last 10 years to pump out the quickest, most clean cut, easily marketable bastardized scripts and force feed the public muted stories with a bland atmosphere. This was like adding some ground garlic and minced onion to store bought spaghetti sauce. The animation is breath taking. The world was created from the ground up and based off all the actual surrounding to Roald Dahl's house, from the furniture he sat in to the hills that surrounded his house. The animation itself kind of messes with your mind in a way that I can't really put my finger on, which is a compliment in my book. The audio was different as well. In animated features the sound is so crisp and manufactured. The actors are shoved into isolated rooms and often don't even work with the other actors. They just come in and lay their own crisp tracks. Anderson took a different approach.
He made all the actors come to Dahl's country estate and live together for weeks and they acted out the parts together and he explains it as recording the audio like a "radio play." When Mr. Fox is rolling around or digging, George Clooney was actually rolling around in the grass with Meryl Streep and digging in the dirt in a furry with his hands. It seems miniscule just from hearing the description, but believe me it added a layer of realism and set this film further apart from the animation we are used to. I'm going on and on about the directing, but the story and acting were awesome too.
You couldn't ask for better actors. All of the talent he called on, are extremely picky about the projects they work on. Meryl Streep, Schwartzman, and Murray don't work on anything that is less than brilliant in there eyes. If a project does not challenge them, their field, or social norms they turn the roles down. This film was based off a book by an author that wrote because he wanted to, directed by a man who works because he loves it, and actors who have an obsessive approach and really only do ground-breaking work.
As I said earlier, I have not read this book, so I'm not sure how closely it stuck to the story. Judging from the work and interviews with Dahl's kin, I would say it was spot on. It wasn't overly dramatized. In fact it was somewhat muted. The script itself wasn't something I'd say was particularly great, but the narrative was just...... Charming. It was full of feeling in a way that has been becoming less and less common over the years, which I would blame on our corporate culture. Can you really explain why Princess Bride is set apart from other films? If you can, then I would say that this had a lot of those same qualities. I just feel I imagine someone from Sierra Leon would feel after seeing snow. They literally just don't have the terms to describe it. This movie is innocent and charming. I loved it. I'd say the moral of this story is to appreciate the things that people may make fun of you for, because we are all different for a reason. Our "downfalls" are actually our strengths.
