A stop-motion animation adaptation of a somewhat lesser-known
children’s book by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author
Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox opens with a bit of text from the
book and a static shot of a worn library copy before revealing its
richly envisioned fictional world. But what follows suggests that
director and co-screenwriter Wes Anderson’s nostalgia might be more for
his own childhood experience of the book — the object
itself, the library where it was found, the impressionable kid who
found it, etc. — than for Dahl’s story, because Anderson,
the director of Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums, takes
the central conceit of Dahl’s slim volume, most of its characters, and
some of its situations and transforms it into a quintessential Wes
Anderson movie.
As in the book, Fantastic Mr. Fox concerns the title
character’s thievery from farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, and the
blowback that it causes. But Anderson fleshes out the family life and
motivations of his protagonist (voiced by George Clooney). Here, Mr.
Fox is a charming rogue who promises to go straight after he and his
pregnant missus are captured — temporarily — in
the commission of raiding a chicken coop. Two years — 12 fox
years — later, Mr. Fox is working as a newspaper columnist
and living in a hole with Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) and son Ash (Anderson
regular Jason Schwartzman), but longs for more. This leads first to a
risky real estate venture and then to “one last bag job” that sets the
film’s siege and heist plots in motion.
Mr. Fox becomes a quintessential Anderson character, with echoes of
Royal Tennenbaum, Rushmore‘s Max Fisher, and, perhaps most of
all, Bottle Rocket’s Dignan. He’s a daydreamer and a schemer
whose primary motivation is simply to make life more interesting, and
Anderson gives him a yearning, aspirational spirit common to so many of
his characters. Anderson also builds a familiar but richer-than-ever
subplot between Mr. Fox and his only son, Ash (the book includes a
brood of small foxes, none with distinctive personalities), who aches
to please his father.
Also Andersonian is the erudite, playful dialogue, a quality not
un-common in Anderson’s indie-identified corner of the film world, but
with which Anderson’s characters are merely elegant exteriors designed
to cloak deeper feelings. And Fantastic Mr. Fox thrives on the
deadpan timing used in Anderson’s best work to set those emotional
undercurrents in motion.
If this doesn’t sound like much of a kid’s movie, well, it isn’t.
Kids may enjoy its fascinating visuals and zippy action, but the film’s
sly humor and emotional “subtext” (a word the film itself deploys) are
designed for an older audience. As is often said of good animated
films, it works on multiple levels, but not because of easy jokes
packed with pop-culture references. This union of Dahl and Anderson
sensibilities is otherwise self-contained.
And those visuals: Anderson breaks from the computer-dominated world
of American animated features with a tactile design scheme that sets
expressive models against handcrafted backdrops that evoke a precocious
kid’s art project. Anderson’s films have always been noted for their
detailed visual design, but this credit is limited too often to
acknowledging Anderson’s cleverness and intricacy, sometimes by way of
a backhanded compliment. What is missed is how much character and
emotional information is conveyed in Anderson’s mise-en-scene. So it is
here.
Recent Anderson films The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling
Limited were partial successes, and the filmmaker’s very specific
aesthetic seemed to be wearing a little thin, even among some of his
fans. No more. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a brilliant, snappy
reinvention of the Anderson style.
