The Fantastic Mr. Fox

(2009)

Dir: Wes Anderson

There’s a lot of debate going around about whether or not Wes Anderson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a children’s film. If you watch it with your eyes closed, it isn’t. If you watch it on mute, it is.

It’s nice on this fence.

But that is where Anderson’s film belongs. Visually it is an absolutely stunning achievement; with Anderson’s choice of stop-motion effects over trendier forms of animation rewarding him with a rich tapestry looking like it fell right out of Dahl’s magical mind. Characters dance back and forth across this toy town landscape like puppets, staring into the camera with somewhat psychotic plastic eyes, and it couldn’t look better.

The dialogue works in that very ‘Wes Anderson’ way, meaning there’s a lot of it, and most of it is mumbled. So crank that volume up, baby! Fortunately, he has George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Bill ‘The Great’ Murray doing the mumbling, so it’s worth the effort.

Clooney is the titular Mr. Fox, a self-conscious animal who promises his wife (Streep) that he will give up the chicken poaching business. Unfortunately, he goes back on this promise several years later and ends up incurring the combined wrath of Farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean.

Everything rolls along at such a lyrical pace, with music from The Rolling Stones to name but one providing the soundtrack. Yes, some of The Fantastic Mr. Fox might feel like a normal Wes Anderson mumblethon with animals, but … so what? Can’t we be engaged by the dialogue and wowed by the visuals at the same time? Is there no such thing as a children’s films for adults?

Anderson needs to continue this original streak and not return to his old safe ground of navel gazing. He’s on to a real winner here.

*** ¾ / *****

“The Fantastic Mr. … Anderson?”