MasterChugs Theater: ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’

Wes Anderson’s latest film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, is an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic novel of the same name. Dahl’s novels, which have helped usher many a disgruntled kid through childhood, don’t condescend to the young, but there’s an element of whimsy that makes readers want to live in his world. Wes Anderson’s movies, on the other hand, can be hit-or-miss for most people, though if you’ve read the past few weeks for me, you know that they’re hits with me. His films tend toward the pretentious, with hints of the war of mid-life crisis and he uses a broad cast of actors repeatedly in his movies. Understated line delivery, artfully composed shots, and a focus on dysfunction alienate some viewers while drawing ardent fans from the other end of the spectrum. Nonetheless, the combination of Dahl and Anderson proves a winner in this film, with Dahl’s fanciful novel providing a great backdrop for Anderson’s regimented directorial style.

Mr. Fox is a family man with a larcenous heart. His instinct tells him to raid the local chicken coops – but his love for his wife has made him promise to give it all up and settle down, working a less dangerous job. Fox makes this promise to settle down as he and his mate face certain death in a trap outside a chicken coop–a moment his wife selects to announce that she’s pregnant. Anderson then jumps forward a couple of years, with Fox and Mrs. alive and well and living in an underground burrow, the parents of a surly teen.

Fox feels cramped by the subterranean digs, however, and bored with his job. He moves the family to a large tree, but still longs to follow his instinct and kill chickens. But he’s promised his wife that his criminal days are behind him. Still, animal nature is a hard thing to shake. Fox and his pal Kylie begin secretly raiding the local farms again – but that triggers retribution from the three local farmers, putting the whole animal community in jeopardy. The meanest of the farmers, Farmer Bean, makes it his mission to kill Fox, even if it means destroying his own land in the process.

With George Clooney and Meryl Streep voicing the Foxes, the ultra-sophisticated Nick and Nora Charles of the vulpine world, this adaptation of the Roald Dahl tale does more than occupy its own particular space between the worlds of childhood and adults. It provides a pleasantly cerebral experience, exhilarating and fizzy, that goes to your head like too much champagne.

On the face of it, stop-motion animation is an unlikely vehicle to make this happen. It’s a labor-intensive practice that involves the frame-by-frame manipulation of three-dimensional models, a process that’s so much like watching paint dry that two or three seconds of film is considered a good day’s work. Yet this process was tonic for Anderson, allowing him to create his own very specific environment, complete with animal puppets that had real hair and wore spiffy corduroy jackets based on one of his own and an overall autumnal palette that had no use for the color green. He even found places for his usual cohort of actors, including Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Owen Wilson, as voice talent.

Working with co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach on the novel, a childhood favorite of the director’s as well as the first book he owned, allowed Anderson to connect with a congenial sensibility and to expand on the plot. He finds space, for instance, for the odd diversion like “whack-bat,” a complex game no one can understand, as well as the dysfunctional family dynamics of which he is especially fond.

Though his style can be overly quirky and a bit affected, Anderson’s films generally get you laughing, and this one’s no different. Fantastic Mr. Fox may not appeal to very young children, but for everyone else (slightly older kids through senior citizens), the movie is a smart, fun holiday release that’s worthy of a watch. And one thing’s for certain: you’ve never seen a movie that looks like this, but you should. It’s a film that’s cerebral and lively. In other words, it’s vintage Wes Anderson.