Genius is Relative

Film: The Royal Tenenbaums
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Wes Anderson makes strange movies. I’m not saying something that hasn’t been said many times before. Anderson’s movies concern extreme characters, people who exist on the fringe of rationality, sanity, and believability. The Royal Tenenbaums is different from this only in the sense that it concerns the lives of more than half a dozen such characters rather than two or three.

We are introduced to the Tenenbaums through a narrator (Alec Baldwin), who tells us of the early life of the family. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) have three children, each of whom is a prodigy in a particular way. Richie (Luke Wilson) is an accomplished tennis player, going pro at 17. Adopted sister Margot (Gweneth Paltrow) is a playwright, receiving a grant in the 9th grade. Youngest child Chaz (Ben Stiller) starts a corporation as a minor and begins making money in real estate. None of this prevents the eventual separation of the parents, and Etheline takes it upon herself to raise the three children. We’re also introduced to Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), a young boy who lives across the street, but grows up in the Tenenbaum home.