The Royal Tenenbaums

Rating

Director

Wes Anderson

Screenplay

Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson

Length

1h 50m

Starring

Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Danny Glover, Seymour Cassel, Kumar Pallana, Alec Baldwin, Grant Rosenmeyer, Jonah Meyerson

MPAA Rating

R

Review

When does dealing with family dysfunction not feel like a familiar slog? When it’s in the hands of filmmaker Wes Anderson and his unique blend of quirkiness, seldom better exemplified than in The Royal Tenenbaums

The story follows the lives of the Tenenbaum family headed by the selfish Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), his brilliant but aloof wife (Anjelica Huston), his three children Chas (played in adulthood by Ben Stiller), Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Richie (Luke Wilson). Chas was a brilliant businessman before his wife died in a plane crash leaving him and his two boys in a perpetual state of paranoia. Margot was a budding playwright, but was adopted into the family. Her tenuous connection to the family has left her feeling like an outsider, especially with her father. Richie was a child prodigy at tennis before he flubbed a prominent match and descended into a bout of melancholy driven largely by his forbidden love for Margot. His childhood best friend Eli Cash (Owen Wilson) made a career for himself as a renowned author while pining for Margot who married the clever psychologist Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray). The film also stars Danny Glover and Seymour Cassel in supporting roles.

As a filmmaker, Anderson has been striving for decades to carve out his own place in film history and like Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch before him has managed to do very well in that vein, establishing some of the most cinematically distinct films ever made. In his third film, many of his later affectations, including the bright, colorful sets and costumes, weren’t as prominent but were beginning to find their footing. His prior films (Bottle Rocket and Rushmore) were certainly more naturalistic in their style and his subsequent pictures would be farther down the path of an original visual style and flourish. Although he’s had some duds in his oeuvre, there’s no question this remains among his best achievements.

Co-written by Owen Wilson, The Royal Tenenbaums script is erudite and brimming with his affected style of emotive and dialogic delivery. Presented by actors who understand and can enliven this approach, the film bursts with the kind of artificial characters that have become his signature. While the characters and settings may not have a foundation in reality, their observations about life and family are universal, simply coded into his quirky style.

The Royal Tenenbaums is Anderson at the peak of his craft, carefully controlling the pieces of his chess board as they maneuver through expected obstacles coming out on the other side victorious, but against whom no one knows. Is their emotionless childhood to blame or are they merely disaffected youth born of money. The film seems to derive much of its enjoyment from tackling bourgeois malaise and severe dysfunction. Anderson’s film is clever, insightful, and outlandish, a stylistic calling card.

Review Written

October 21, 2025