Revisiting The Royal Tenenbaums — 20 years later
My entry into the whimsical world of Wes Anderson at the tender age of 11 began quite randomly and organically.
It was not through hipster friends, magazines, blogs or other social media platforms (which were so nascent back then). Rather, I have my father — a somewhat traditional Asian man who used to believe that his children ought to be a doctor/lawyer/engineer/accountant etc — to thank.
In November or December 2001, my dad brought my brother and me to watch The Royal Tenenbaums at a cinema downtown. He had probably bought tickets thinking it was slapstick comedy — it’s got Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson! Definitely slapstick comedy gold! And I need to laugh! My mum had just passed away a year before after a long bout of illness, and films had become our form of escape — even if it was just a couple of hours in a darkened theatre.
I vividly remember sitting in the cinema watching the other adults around me laugh at the deadpan script and storyline, which revolves around Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) reconnecting with his estranged family after learning that his wife, Etheline (Angelica Huston), might want to marry a stable (read: boring) and devoted charted accountant called Henry Sherman (Danny Glover).
But I also only remember the following: I remember loving how dysfunctional the Tenenbaums seemed; their big, bohemian house; just how cool Margot Tenenbaum (Gwyneth Paltrow) was and how she and Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson) got to live my childhood dream of living in a museum à la From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I also remember being introduced to profanities (fuck was said so many times — I bet my dad was cringing in his seat); and last but not least:
The Royal Tenenbaums led to me to discover the Rushmore (1998) DVD (thanks for the memories, Video EZY), and going to the cinema to see all his subsequent films over the next decade — all of which remain favourites until today. The subsequent films of that decade, in descending order of love and favour, are as follows: The Darjeeling Limited (2007) (and this particular song), Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) (and this particular song) and The Life Aquatic (2004) (and this particular song, and well, Seu Jorge performing ’em David Bowie tunes).
Fast-forward to 11 December 2021 (probably almost 20 years to the day I first watched the film), it was such a delight to watch it again on the big screen at The Projector X — a truly hip and happening indie cinema with a super Gen Z, counter-culture crowd.
Rewatching the film as a 31-year-old has really made me empathise for literally every single adult character — in particular, Chas Tenenbaum (Ben Stiller), who’s going through a lot and raising his kids as a single dad after losing his wife in a plane accident. (I thought of my dad and wondered how he was feeling then back in 2001, when we were going through our own weird limbo of readjusting to life without my mum.)
Cue the Adidas tracksuits (Wes Anderson/Ben Stiller made them iconic long before Squid Game did), Chas’s gracious attempts to bond with his sons through midnight emergency drills, and his own journey in reconnecting with his dad. (Twenty minutes into this re-watch, I wondered if Gene Hackman was still around. A quick Google search reveals that he is alive and kickin’ as of December 2021 — as are Danny Glover and Angelica Huston.)
I am also now at an age that isn’t far off from Margot and Richie (early 30s), and their character arcs made me wonder: what does it mean to achieve and sustain success, and what does it take to be happy?
Is it about admitting to yourself about what you need (Margot — smoking, secrecy, mystery and love; Richie — Margot, honesty, dealing with fame and shedding off an old image)? Side-note: Richie’s scene of self-harm can be extremely triggering for many today— especially with Needle in the Hay playing in the background during that entire scene. Or does one find happiness by seeking solace in solitude and independence (i.e. Etheline’s awesome career and stance on raising children, Margot choosing to spend hours in the bathroom to decompress and just be)?
Even Pagoda [Kumar Pallana] as Royal’s trusty sidekick stands out as a very full character on his own. His scenes in the fore and background — content in his own world within the Tenenbaum household — elevate his position as a family guardian and highlight his sense of happiness in being part of the Tenenbaums. This is something the Tenenbaums’ former neighbour (and Margot’s sometime lover), Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), could never really achieve despite his best efforts of wanting to be accepted (“I’ve always wanted to be a Tenenbaum”).
What stood out most artistically in this re-watch was the way books are used as scene openers and transitions:
I love the sans-serif and Pelican-like aesthetic so damn much.
Fundamentally, the re-watch has helped me frame and articulate some thoughts on Anderson’s body of earlier work. The Royal Tenenbaums was such a treat to viewers cinematically, as this sort of whimsical-ness hadn’t been overtly done before, and viewers could breathe and flow with the characters — people that are not that stilted or stifled as mere “Wes Anderson characters”. This was what a friend (who suggested going for this re-watch and is probably Wes Anderson’s number one fan in South-East Asia) opined about Anderson’s 1998–2009 films, and how most of the scenes in The Royal Tenenbaums were not too consciously symmetrical or whimsical (as is the case for Anderson’s body of work in the 2010s).
I’m looking forward to re-watching The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited as they hit their 20th anniversary milestones in the 2020s. Besides embracing the fact that 20 years have passed, the storylines will probably resonate with me more since I’m at the age where most of Anderson’s characters are going through a 30/40-something crisis about self, family, life, love and everything else in between.
