| The Fantastic Mr. Fox |
| Written by Christopher Sullivan | |||
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 His answer is “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, an adaptation of the Roald Dahl children’s book about a clever fox who saves his animal community from some nasty farmers after a foiled heist. Mr Anderson’s first animated film is completely stop motion, the figures being moved one frame at a time during filming. In this form, it seems as though Mr. Anderson has finally found how he was supposed to direct after all these years. The detailed pacing of the stop motion amplifies the director’s notorious attention for detail. In the opening scene, Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) is listening to a portable radio. When his wife approaches (voiced by Meryl Steep), there is a long and deliberate close up of Mr. Fox turning the radio off. Initially, you may think it’s the pace of the stop motion, but the same shot would have been done at the same meticulous pace if it were a live action Clooney on screen. Much has been said about this film being a “children’s film”, comparing it with Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are”, another arguably not so child friendly film for kids. While Mr. Jonze’s film is a mostly unstructured, yet beautiful series of musings on the frustrations of childhood (and adult life for that matter), “Mr. Fox” is Anderson’s most structured film, and in a way makes you realize all his films are children’s films in a way. “I feel like I’m poor,” Mr. Fox says, referring to the hole he lives in with his family early in the film. It’s one of the most direct references to class in a Wes Anderson film, considering nearly all his films are about quirky characters in the upper class. But like Rushmore, possibly his next charming film, where Max is striving to be something grander than he is, “Mr. Fox” takes on similar themes. After a foiled heist attempt at robbing local farmers with his opossum sidekick, the farmers seek revenge on Fox and his friends, sending them into the sewers. Its Fox’s fault the mess happened, and it’s his responsibility to get them out, in the most self assured manner only a Wes Anderson character have. All the facets that have come to define and confine Mr. Anderson are there in this film, the wide, establishing shots of characters facing the camera, unsatisfied, wine sipping, “unlikable” yet somehow relatable characters, immaculate production design, vibrant primary colors, a neurotic Jason Schwartzman, are all here. And even though it is a “children’s film”, he seems to not let that hold him back at all. There are rats smoking cigarettes, animals getting drunk, and dialogue that’s sure to go over the average seven year olds head. Bill Murray badgers and suit wearing mice live Tenanbaum lives, yet we get more out of it in the end. In the end the animals triumph by realizing what they are, instead of trying to be something they aren’t. It’s a level of acceptance that seems to ring truer than in most of Anderson’s films. It’s a conclusion the director almost seems to be making himself. In many scenes, we see wide shots of the cast doing wily, jittery stop motion dances to a classic rock or pop song. By the end of the film it looks like Mr. Anderson’s characters should always have been dancing this way.
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