Review: Captain Fantastic
"Your mother is dead. Nothing is going to change. We'll go on living in exactly the same way. We're a family." Those words are spoken by Ben (Viggo Mortensen) to his brood of six sons and daughters, aged seven to 18. Despite his matter-of-fact conviction, things will change, they won't go on living in exactly the same way, and they may or may not be the family he and his wife Leslie intended.
Raised to be philosopher kings, their children have been nurtured in a back-to-nature, off-the-grid existence in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Trained survivalists - they can hunt for food, scale all manner of terrain, and are familiar and at ease with knives and bows arrows - they are also extraordinarily well-read, able to discuss Marxism, Nabokov and Supreme Court rulings with almost frightening acuity. These children, whatever their age, have always been treated as adults and Ben has never hesitated to tell them the facts of any situation. Thus, the children are aware of their mother's suicide and their affluent grandfather Jack's (Frank Langella) forbidding them to attend her funeral.
Though Ben tries to honour Jack's wishes - "The powerful control the lives of the powerless," he tells his children - he also wants to do right by his Leslie, who expressly stated in her will that she wanted to be cremated rather than buried, and his children, who want to bid a proper farewell to their mother. So he and the children set off in a ramshackle school bus and embark on a journey to reclaim his wife's body. The odyssey exposes the weaknesses of the lifestyle Ben and Leslie have imposed on their children and calls into question whether Ben's parenting might be a form of enlightened liberation or child abuse.
The clash between the conventional and radical parental approaches reaches its peak during a dinner with Ben's sister Harper (Kathryn Hahn), her husband Dave (Steve Zahn), and their two children. Ben's children are teased for thinking that Nike is a Greek goddess rather than a shoe; Harper's children are shown up for being talented at video games and little else. Harper and Dave are shocked that Ben would allow his youngest to have a sip of wine ("It's not crack," Ben notes) and even more shocked with his not tiptoeing around the circumstances of his wife's death. There are some things that children shouldn't be exposed to, they insist.
Their idyllic upbringing might be threatened by their exposure to the outside world, but writer-director Matt Ross shows that there were already cracks present. Ben's oldest son Bodevan (George MacKay) has secretly applied to and been accepted by a handful of prestigious universities; 12-year-old Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton) simmers with rebellious anger. So whilst the mission is ostensibly to pay tribute to Leslie, it's really more how Ben can keep the family together whilst maintaining the ideals that may be tearing the family apart.
Ross does mythologise Ben and his anarchist wonderland; some may find this smug, others may be more forgiving since Captain Fantastic proves to be a predominantly enjoyable and thought-provoking film anchored by an excellent lead performance by Mortensen, who treads that fine line between fighting for what he believes in and the extreme fanaticism to those ideals that may ultimately hinder his family.
There is some treacle that threads into the narrative and actors like Hahn and Langella work a little too hard to inject dimensions into their relatively one-note characters, but the film is confidently directed by Ross, who somehow manages to imbue a potentially ludicrous tale with genuine emotion. Also noteworthy is the gorgeous cinematography by Stéphane Fontaine who, aside from Mortensen, may be the film's best asset.
Captain Fantastic
Directed by: Matt Ross
Written by: Matt Ross
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, George MacKay, Missi Pyle, Ann Dowd, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Trin Miller
