Captain Fantastic
Crit
Often I go to a film expecting to like it but to encounter obstacles to love--plot conveniences, character slips, logical implausibilities. Once or twice in a good year I see something and am lucky enough to be able to dismiss the flaws (one child of six who has gentle doubts about his father's worldview, another who openly rebels against it, and four who would rather die than have to live in fascist, consumerist, shallow American culture? how convenient!) and fall in love.
What makes this story of practical counterculturism work? Acting, mostly: it goes without saying that Viggo Mortensen would commit fully to his role of a widowed paterfamilias who tells all the truth, slantlessly, and leads his tribe in celebrating Noam Chomsky's Birthday (giving each a lethal weapon), or that Frank Langella would bring both nastiness and sympathy to his small role as Ben's nemesis, his wealthy and conventional father-in-law.
But the kids, oh, the kids; write down these names: George MacKay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, and Charlie Shotwell. Oh, and Elijah Stevenson and Teddy Van Ee, seen briefly as Ben's video gamer nephews, whose parents are played by the always welcome (and rhyming!) Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn.
It is, in short (too late for that), an actors' film--and a film for the eyes, with sumptuous location shooting in Washington, Oregon, and New Mexico. But I seem to have buried the lead: it's a film about people with whom I side with in theory but would lampoon in life, yet the film killed the lampooning impulse and left only the love.
Trailers
- Denial--As in Holocaust, with Rachel Weisz going after her second Oscar, as historian Deborah Lipstadt, sued for libel by denier David Irving (Timothy Spall).
- Don't Think Twice--A comedy about comics, starring some of my favorites: Keegan-Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs, and Mike Birbiglia (who wrote and directed), along with one, Kate Micucci, who the trailer suggests might be one of my favorites once I've seen the film.
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