doctor film

(Originally published 16 March 2014. Kind thanks to Catcher in the Reel for permission to repost.)

By Aaron Hunter

There is a telling moment early in Bottle Rocket (1996), Wes Anderson’s feature-length directorial debut. Dignan (Owen Wilson) has just helped his friend Anthony (Luke Wilson) “break out” of a voluntary psychiatric facility and they are riding the bus back home. As they go over their plans for the future, Anthony jokingly asks Dignan how he feels about his first visit to the “nut house.” Dignan, obviously unsettled, replies: “Hey . . . be sensitive to the fact that other people are not comfortable talking about emotional disturbances.” Depending on one’s definition of “disturbances,” this line describes nearly every protagonist in nearly every film that Wes Anderson has directed. The characters who populate Anderson’s world go to frequently elaborate lengths to avoid emotional confrontation. When they are forced to “talk about” their feelings, they often do so via intricately constructed and highly childish methods of distraction and distancing. Think of Max (Jason Schwartzman) and Herman’s (Bill Murray) confrontation over Rosemary (Olivia Williams) in Rushmore or the three Whitman brothers (Adrien Brody, Schwartzman, O. Wilson) avoiding their father’s funeral in Darjeeling Limited, or Royal’s (Gene Hackman) elaborate ruse of impending death, which he fabricates simply for a chance to spend a bit of time with his family.

The payoff comes when circumstances finally push these characters beyond their ability to avoid. Sometimes the moment is deliberately small – Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) wondering if the shark remembers him (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). Other times it is more recognizable in its intentions, as when Royal gives Chas (Ben Stiller) the Dalmatian in The Royal Tenenbaums. Regardless of magnitude, however, it seems safe to say that Anderson’s films are often constructed to lead up to these moments. For some viewers, this can make them insufferable. They are so mannered in their emotional suppression, so dependent in their early goings on their luscious visuals, their insistent soundtracks, and their oblique references to other films, that they become infuriating. For others though (myself included, with some caveats), the journey is worth it. Anderson’s distancing techniques are frustrating because his characters are so richly painted that we want them to do better, to feel better. As the films unfold without allowing the characters to grasp at some form of happiness, the tension grows, and it does so within a beautiful world that seems real, but also unreal, skewed, like when you visit a foreign country where the language is the same but something else . . . just isn’t quite right. Then, boom, an epiphany occurs, and some form of real, human, emotional connection takes place. For the viewer who is open to this approach, these connections can become moments of minor catharsis in which the building sadness and frustration dissipate and the hole they leave is filled with hard-earned joy. Continue reading →