An autumn enjoyer’s review of Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”
Lauren Sarney, Features Editor
As we begin to bundle ourselves in knits and arrays of scarves in order to keep one burgeoning autumn chill at bay, this craving for warmth will undoubtedly seep into our down time. When not in the throes of midterms, students will likely pile under quilts and begin the yearly tradition of mind-numbing through cinema: who can be down about poor performance on an essay when watching the “Remains of the Day” song from “Corpse Bride”? Who among us is self-loathing enough to ponder the merits of cuffing season when there’s “When Harry Met Sally” and “Dead Poets Society” to sob over instead? Atop my list of fall classics is the Roald Dahl tale-turned stop motion by the fastidiously eccentric Wes Anderson, “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” In fact, dear reader, it is merely days into October and I’ve already rewatched it. It is, in a word, gulp able: the movements are precise to such a point, the story addictive, the dialogue exquisite. It is the perfect mindless movie, even the soundtrack is golden! I have baked many muffins to “Kristofferson’s Theme.” It is fantastic in its watchability, its ease with which it reaches audiences. This review could end there.
Under a quilt of my own I snugged up, excited for a honeyed tale followed by a deep slumber, yet inexplicably during the film I was struck by a feeling in the chest that led to this article. It sat amber-hot on my ribs, knitting my eyebrows: I was all at once irate. Irrationally, and without warning, I wanted to slap the main character clean across the face, and perhaps my younger self while I was at it! “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I decided at once, was not a tale of friendship and epic triumph, but of male chauvinism and self-centered world building. How could I have been so blind! This was not a cute autumn story, but one of the Narcissus of woodland creatures. How naive of me to get sucked into this world of pantomime.
The tale hinges on the Mr. Fox in question, following him as he disrupts the world around him through his Master Plans to rob farmers and businessmen Boris, Bunce, and Beans. Mr. Fox is depicted from the first moment on screen to be a Robin Hood-esk thief – except that it is him who is the poor he is stealing for – alternatively a regular Davy Crockett (as Anderson so subtly parallels by playing the titular song of Crockett.) Along his journey Mr. Fox gets a myriad of creatures roped into his plots, including his wife, child, and nephew who he had taken in in the wake of his brother-in-law’s illness. As I write it now, I am drawn back to that irritation, for on paper Mr. Fox is an undeniably heartless skunk (pun unintended, but left in), a man Mrs. Fox indeed never should have married. And yet, even with my aghast aversion, I still cannot let go of a nagging thought: why do I still love it so? I despise movies with unlikable characters, perpetually unable to watch “Wolf of Wall Street” or delve into terribly pretentious conversations over Holden Caulfields’ moral merit in “Catcher In The Rye” because I want to halt every discussion with a cry of “he sucks! He sucks! Why do I have to care about fictional men who operate only for their own desires when real life is so chockablock with them as it is!” The amber heat still sits yet musing over it, now it is also laced with curiosity. For all of his shortcomings and pitfalls, for all the people he harms, Mr. Fox is undoubtedly charismatic, and throughout the film no matter my agita I held my breath that he’d triumph. Why?
To answer this question, I had to take a step back, look at it as a whole piece of work. It is a movie primed on, as the notorious critic Cleanth Brooks might exalt, doing what it says. The titular character is fantastic in the affable sense of the word: he is graceful and interesting, a hero (if only in his own mind.) Yet, the far more fantastic element of his character is his absolute and total belief that he is capable of the quests he embarks upon. His arrogance and exceeding apathy towards the feelings and opinions of friends and loved ones stupefies the mind, it catapults the story in all different directions and truly conceives of the plot. In one scene that dropped my jaw all the animals are preparing for a stolen feast whilst trapped underground in a maze of their making, and Mr. Fox rips a speech from the jowls of Badger to begin talking about himself. Reminder: they are underground because of his hubris! In a moment they will be flooded out by cider because of his absolute devotion to the sunk cost fallacy! Yet even though the heights of his egotism dizzy the mind, this moment makes me laugh. He charms, I suppose. He fascinates.
It is not just Mr. Fox’s arrogance that begrudgingly warms the soul, I’ve realized. Wes Anderson, as is his way, seemed to make this film as impossible to compose as he was able. A long enough scroll on Instagram reels will likely double one back to snippets of Anderson getting the actors to run around saying their monologues, there’s even a scene in which George Clooney voices Mr. Fox atop a motorcycle. Really, it feels needless, yet it brings a chuckle when truly contemplated. Anderson got an A-List cast of Hollywood magma together to make a movie that only required good voice actors, and then he made them perform their lines ridiculously. Somehow that too charms me, the total abandon with which Anderson put together this film. He is, in a way, Fox-like.
So, as you begin your season of cozying and you turn on the most beautiful stop motion “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” perhaps you two will experience the whiplash of despising Mr. Fox yet also kind of wanting to be him. I attempt to eschew arrogance every day, terrified as a woman that it’ll be an unpalatable colour on me. But hey, if a man can uproot the lives of his entire community, be a regretful partner for his spouse, and still make me want to rewatch his failings just to see his eventual flight every year, perhaps “Fantastic Mr. Fox” ought to be taken as a suggestion that a touch more arrogance won’t do much harm.
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