Fantastic Mr. Fox

In 2009, two directors of distinction decided to adapt beloved childrens' books. Spike Jonze tackled Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are with (to me) quite favorable results. Detractors, on the other hand, felt that Jonze's too-clever-by-half stylistics tainted the book's magic. Wes Anderson, purveyor of what you might call a dry offhandedness, decided to oversee Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox, another fondly recalled diversion. Dahl's stories are beset with pitch black humor, often grisly circumstances, and comeuppance. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a fine example, and its initial film adaptation, WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY captured the twistedness quite well. I've yet to see Tim Burton's recent re-do.

Anderson's 2009 FANTASTIC MR. FOX, I'm happy to say, is very successful. I have not read the original book extensively. Those who have say that Anderson and co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach have taken many liberties. If that is so, I am blissfully unaware, and free to enjoy the patented eccentricities we've come to expect from Anderson. The off-kilter, random obersvations are just as prevelent in this animated film as in any of the director's previous films. Cute foxes and a rollicking storyline do not sideline Anderson's odd style, not even a pinch.

Mr. Fox (George Clooney) is a rather charismatic animal. He is prone to interrupt everyone else during a toast, dissect the vaguries of the English language, charm the birds out of the trees (or chickens out of coops) when he wants to. He's dapper, sly (but of course), and filled with confidence. When his plans fail, he remains optimistic, even as, in a bleak moment, he plans his own suicide.

He's also very self-aware. For all of his polish and panache, he continually states that essentially, he is a wild animal. He may try to go straight, taking a job as a local newspaper columnist and such, but his nature will overtake his bids for domestic and societal legitimacy. He will return to his wily ways and devise plots to snatch chickens, turkeys, ducks, and even fermented apple cider. He can't help it. It's who he is. Felicity, his wife, (Meryl Streep), is longsuffering but supportive as she and her family again and again find themselves in peril because of her husband's antics. She offers some cold honesty, "I love you, but I shouldn't have married you."

Mr. Fox's son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) is your classic misfit, entirely unsure of his place in the fox or human landscape. He underachieves at virtually everything, including a cricket-like game at which his father had been a local champion. When Ash's cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson) arrives for an extended stay, Ash's apparent inadaquacies are only magnified. Kristofferson is an expert at martial arts, does yoga, meditates. His demeanor is positively Andersonian. Oh, and so is Fox's lawyer, Badger (Bill Murray) who warns Fox not to move into a new tree home that is located near the compounds of 3 fearsome local proprieter/farmers: Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, the latter of whom is considered the meanest man around. Bean, as voiced by Michael Gambon, will prove to be quite the ruthless, vindicative sourpuss as he engages in all-out war with Fox and his compadres after his compound has been pillaged more than once.

The screenplay is your standard 3-act. Ideas are introduced that are not so random as to not become vital to the plot near the finale. In order words, the old, "if you introduce a gun in the first act you gotta shoot somebody in the third" applies. But woven into this story are rich vocal performances. Clooney, in particular, just hits the gas with his lively portrayal of the title character. He without apology infuses some of his own persona into the character, often as a means of spoofery. The deadpan work of Schwartzman and others fits well into Anderson's canvas. If Dahl was still with us, I think he would appreciate this film, honestly. It may be different than the source, with a healthy dose of the oblique, but the mordant humor is still intact.

The stop-motion animation, a painstaking process of moving each piece a millimeter or so for each frame, is as old school as the film's use of old Rolling Stones songs. In other words, typical Anderson. I loved it, by the way. Even just watching the foxes' hairs bristle in the breeze is enjoyable. This is no Rankin-Bass fest, but its retro stylings are so perfectly matched to the attitude. It worked wonderfully for me.

Also, common in Wes' movies, we get titles on the screen announcing characters, how much time has gone by, what will happen next. This is an animated family film, suitable for just about any audience, but of course it is the adults with a bent for the unusual who will have the most fun. Is the patented pretension toned down? Not a bit, happy to say, including a sequence where a band plays a jaunty little folk song that is interrupted by the lead singer's father, Bean. He berrates his son for bad songwriting. I loved this movie.