Movie Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009, Directed by Wes Anderson)

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with director Wes Anderson. On one hand, he possesses an uncanny visual sense, an admirable indie sensibility, and a deft touch with observing the intricate quirks of human behavior. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever felt a moment of genuine pathos in a Wes Anderson movie. The hipper-than-thou director often falls into the “quirky for quirky’s sake” camp of filmmaking. Anderson’s interest (some might say obsession) with odd personalities and consistent color schemes endears him deeply to his twenty- and thirty-something hipster devotees. It’s no surprise that Anderson is prominently featured on Stuff White People Like, the website devoted to all things yuppyish. Yet, I am never quite sure how I am supposed to feel about the characters I see on the screen. Films like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are a joy to look at. Anderson’s stubborn persistence on placing all dialogue, characters and plots in big heavy quotation marks, though, makes his films occasionally tedious to sit through. I suppose when it comes to postmodern irony I’ve always appreciated the L.A. gangsters and Kung Fu stylists of Quentin Tarantino than the rich New Yorkers and precocious prep-schoolers of Wes Anderson.

I would say that Fantastic Mr. Fox is quite typical of a “Wes Anderson film.” The characters are just as quirky as those in The Darjeeling Limited, albeit in animated form. The color schemes are still coordinated to the point of constipation. Bill Murray even makes an appearance. But, Anderson’s latest cinematic effort is arguably his most effective film to date. I experienced the same coldness and lack of emotional depth I have come to expect from films in Anderson’s oeuvre. However, the young director has finally reached a point where his visual style is so creative and consistent that it trumps all problems with the plot, characters, and dialogue.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is based (very) loosely on the children’s book by beloved author Roald Dahl. George Clooney skillfully voices a fox who has made his money in the past as a chicken thief. His wife (voiced by Meryl Streep) disapproves of the danger such a profession brings to the household, and insists that Clooney find another line of work. The other talented celebrity vocal talents include Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, and Roman Coppola.

Anderson’s movie was made using a fresh looking stop-motion animation technique. The characters and settings were crafted out of clay and then manipulated in front of the camera by hand one frame at a time. This approach seems so innovative because it is indeed so old. King Kong, the influential action film of the 1930s, was made in a similar manner. Fantastic Mr. Fox’s atypical animation technique would only be an interesting production detail if it weren’t so successful. Obviously, animation techniques have come a long way since King Kong. The foxes in Anderson’s film don’t look exactly like real foxes, but they are sure detailed in the unusual form they have been given. By looking to the animated past for inspiration, Anderson maintains his reputation as one of modern cinema’s premiere visual stylists.

It is also interesting to note that Anderson reportedly directed much of this film sitting at his laptop in France. He was sent dailies and gave the animators instructions on what needed to be modified, added, or subtracted. However, he was not physically present with the visual artists for much of the film’s creation. In a way, Anderson has proven himself the ultimate 21st-century director. He has taken the excellent strategies from the past and combined them with decidedly contemporary ways of working. Fantastic Mr. Fox, then, represents not just a delightful little picture, but a bold statement about the future of the cinematic arts.

As blown away as I was with the film’s visual sensibility, it pains me to say that Mr. Fox suffers from the same emotional vapidity plaguing earlier Anderson efforts. I was amused by the characters (especially Clooney’s lead fox), but did not particularly care about them in any meaningful way. I enjoyed the music, the jokes, and the witty banter, but did not walk away with a sense of the film’s purpose. Maybe that’s okay, though. Anderson’s films have arguably never been about the deep moral questions of the time or exploring complicated themes. Maybe they are all artifice—but what an artifice! If you are going to see only one Wes Anderson movie in your lifetime, Fantastic Mr. Fox is as good as any.