Fantastic Mr. Fox vs Bottle Rocket

Because I’m always chirping about Wes Anderson being my good friend, I received Bottle Rocket on Blu-ray for Christmas. But if I’m such a fan of Anderson, why didn’t I already own Bottle Rocket? Good question.

I saw it, years ago, and promptly forgot it. Since then, I’ve thought of Rushmore as Anderson’s debut. Watching it the other night, I felt a little like I was listening to the demo of a favorite band. All the tricks are there, even the actors, but it’s not quite gelling yet. You can see in Bottle Rocket who Wes Anderson would become, but it’s surprising there aren’t more movies between that and Rushmore, considering the improvements that occurred in between.

Bottle Rocket stars Luke and Owen Wilson. If you think of them as perpetually twenty-something (especially Owen), you’re in for a shock when you rewatch Bottle Rocket. They each look roughly eighteen years old, and Owen has this hilarious military school haircut that makes him look simultaneously earnest and deranged. At the start of the movie, Dignan (Owen) is breaking Anthony (Luke) out of a mental facility he was in voluntarily. Anthony plays along, climbing down a chain of sheets, because he knows Dignan worked so hard on the plan, and he doesn’t want to disappoint him. Along with their friend Bob (Robert Musgrave), they’re going to commit the perfect robbery, hit the road, and split the money. Dignan has a life-plan written out for them (in one of the moments that shows Anderson developing his style) that shows everything working out down to their final years. Nothing works out quite to plan, as you might have guessed. It’s like a bumbling, less violent version of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Bottle Rocket is funny, and I liked it again, but there’s something so slight and superficial about it that gives it the feel of a lark. Bottle Rocket doesn’t play so much like a movie as like an exercise, which fit in perfectly with the mid-nineties slacker trend in indie movies, but as a part of Anderson’s filmography, it’s the one that stands out as “early work”. I still absolutely recommend it, but not as a primer on Anderson’s work. Make sure you watch Rushmore or The Life Aquatic or something first, then backtrack. For a real treat, watch it with the commentary from the Wilson brothers.

Like Bottle Rocket, Fantastic Mr. Fox is built around a group of friends in a heist gone wrong. And it’s got the now signature themes and moves of Wes Anderson: generational shifts and conflicts, complicated ambitions, and characters that are both intellectually gifted and emotionally immature. As with his last few movies, Fantastic Mr. Fox is also a visual feast. More than any film I’ve seen this year, I want to buy Fantastic Mr. Fox, so I can study it at home. I want to watch all the extras, listen to all the commentaries, so I can find out how they made everything, how long it took, and just how tiny Mr. Fox’s world is.

Mr. Fox, as you know, is literally a fox, living in the forest with his wife and son (Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman, respectively). Mr. Fox was once a chicken killer, but has gone straight, trading his life of crime for one of being a newspaper columnist. As with many former thieves (including a couple played by George Clooney), Mr. Fox has more crime in his future. It’s not just that he loves delicious chickens; he’s in the midst of a non-fox-years mid-life existential crisis, wondering if succumbing to his true fox nature and killing chickens is merely destiny. The chickens he wants to steal, and the tree he wants to live in, belong to three rich local villains named Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Mr. Fox is able to see the outcome of every scenario, and plans his robberies efficiently, taking cider, chickens and anything else belonging to the evil humans that he might crave. Makes me wonder what he could do with a casino or a bank. No offense to Stephen Soderbergh, but I don’t think he’s got the patience for the animation.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is animated in stop-motion, but isn’t similar to any other recent stop-motion movies, like those by Tim Burton. Instead, it recalls animation from the 1960s, which puts it right in line with Anderson’s live-action movies. Think of the New York inhabited by The Royal Tenenbaums. The Fox family dress in corduroy and terrycloth, and have a home designed like something out of your favorite Sixties sitcom.

And wouldn’t you know it; after years of what some have found to be over-styled movies, Wes Anderson is a natural for the genre. Fantastic Mr. Fox’s characters move in a way existing somewhere between nature and puppetry, but the times in which the action is less than fluid ended up being some of my favorites. This is maybe how Toy Story would have looked, had it been made in 1962. All of the voice actors are hilarious (especially Bill Murray as the Fox family lawyer, and Eric Anderson as their overachieving nephew), and despite being supposedly for kids, Fantastic Mr. Fox has a heist that is surprisingly complex and suspenseful. Also, secretly, I wanted to bring it all home with me. Every other movie is merchandised to death. Why can’t I buy Willem Dafoe’s knife-wielding Rat security guard to sit on my desk?

Fantastic Mr. Fox: A

Bottle Rocket: B-