Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Director:

Wes Anderson

Writers:

Roald Dahl (novel) and
Wes Anderson (screenplay)

Release Date:

25 November 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Animation | Comedy

Tagline:

Dig the life fantastic.

Plot:

Angry farmers, tired of sharing their chickens with a sly fox, look to get rid of their opponent and his family.

Plot Keywords:

Fox | Farmer | One Last Job | Abbreviation In Title | Talking Animal

US Showtimes:

The Landmark

12:50pm | 3:00 | 5:10 | 7:20 | 9:30 | 11:30am | 1:40pm | 3:50 | 6:00 | 8:10 | 10:15

(personalize)

Cast

George Clooney	...	Mr. Fox (voice)
Meryl Streep	...	Mrs. Fox (voice)
Jason Schwartzman	...	Ash (voice)
Bill Murray	...	Badger (voice)
Wallace Wolodarsky	...	Kylie (voice) (as Wally Wolodarsky)
Eric Chase Anderson	...	Kristofferson (voice) (as Eric Anderson)
Michael Gambon	...	Franklin Bean (voice)
Willem Dafoe	...	Rat (voice)
Owen Wilson	...	Coach Skip (voice)
Jarvis Cocker	...	Petey (voice)
Wes Anderson	...	Weasel (voice)
Karen Duffy	...	Linda Otter (voice)
Robin Hurlstone	...	Walter Boggis (voice)
Hugo Guinness	...	Nathan Bunce (voice)
Helen McCrory	...	Mrs. Bean (voice)

Also Known As:

Den fantastiska räven (Sweden) [sv]
Der Fantastische Mr. Fox (Germany) [de]
Fantastique Maître Renard (France) [fr]
Kekseliäs kettu (Finland) [fi]

MPAA:

Rated PG for action, smoking and slang humor.

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | SDDS

Certification:

USA:PG (certificate #45468) | Ireland:PG | Australia:PG | UK:PG | South Korea:All | Singapore:PG | New Zealand:PG

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

In the months preceding the opening of the film, controversy arose concerning the little time that director Wes Anderson actually spent on set, choosing to direct the animation via e-mail from his flat in Paris. In an October 2009 Los Angeles Times article, cinematographer Tristan Oliver was quoted as saying, "I think he's a little O.C.D. Contact with people disturbs him. This way, he can spend an entire day locked inside an empty room with a computer. He's a bit like the Wizard of Oz. Behind the curtain." Informed of Oliver's discontent, Anderson said, "I would say that kind of crosses the line for what's appropriate for the director of photography to say behind the director's back while he's working on the movie. So I don't even want to respond to it." On the Wes Anderson fan website The Rushmore Academy, Oliver criticized the article's tone, stating that it made him out to be a villain: "Yes, working with Wes can be frustrating but that is true of any director and I've worked with a hundred who were more irritating and less motivated than Wes. So let's just lay the ghost of this particular myth and oh, it would be nice if the death threats stopped too. Thanks."

Quotes:

Ash: [the boys are breaking into Mrs. Bean's kitchen; Ash addresses Kris] You should probably put your bandit hat on now. Personally, I- I don't have one, but I modified this tube sock.
Kristofferson: You look good.
Ash: Yeah, I do.

Movie Connections:

References Le roman de Renard (1930)

Soundtrack:

Une Petite Ile

Spirit if not letter of Dahl in animated adaptation romp

It's been about a quarter of a century since (enthralled) I read Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox. Well this film roughly represents the text. However, Anderson and Baumbach took the decision to re-appropriate some of the story's content and style in order to reflect their own sense of energy and wonder. It basically works, because it's fresh, up-to-date and pertinent to a cinema audience.

The voices are a super feature, particularly that of Anderson's long- time collaborator Jason Schwartzman, who plays Ash, the eponymous Fox's son/cub. In a nice casting move, which brings further irony to a running joke concerning human vs fox years, Meryl Streep is Mrs Fox to Clooney's Mr... Clooney is a bit cool for me in this film - he's a good comic actor but a lot of what he does is visual. I missed a weight to his sincerity.

The spirit of the late, great British animator Oliver Postgate is invoked throughout the film with a generally low-fi approach to the animation. I was most impressed with the variation of shots, given that it's all roughly two-dimensional. Variations of angle and framing as well as some fluent camera tricks (which, sometimes for only a matter of frames, must have hardly seemed worth it) make for an involving film. The chase scenes are funny, fast and occasionally frightening. One mustn't forget that Dahl himself did not eschew the shocking in his books.

As is often the case with animation, there's a fair bit besides the narrative packed into the screen. We're treated to a Jarvis Cocker cameo in more ways than one; a Tarantino homage from Kill Bill; and an interesting framing device that Brian de Palma used in Carrie, overlaying a shot so that foreground and background are in focus simultaneously to take in solipsitic aside and reaction simultaneously. As in Carrie, this happens on a sports field, at a sub-Quidditch/cricket game, mixing quirks and pathos as the young animals wrestle with their own pre-pubescent purpose, Anderson's chief interest in this film.

Some of it doesn't work. I thought the second appearance of the (more Tarantino meets Desplat's Morricone-spoof music) rat was overlong and possibly superfluous. Yet I laughed a great deal and the serious moments never curdle. 7/10