Review 2: Captain Fantastic
By Eva Claire Schwartz
Viggo Mortenson’s food-hunting,
literary-teaching, and forest-dwelling paternal role as Ben Cash in Captain Fantastic, questions what’s
important in life and the role of a father. Matt Ross’s 118 minute chronicle of
a couple who rejected the norms and moved their family into the mountains of
the Pacific Northwest manages to pull heartstrings and spark celebration all at
once.
Opening with all of Ben’s offspring
covered in black paint and humanely killing a deer for food (then processing
the meat for dinner), we are immediately aware that this is no ordinary family.
It quickly moves to dinner and a show where the kids are all well-versed in
different instruments and they play off each other’s talents before crawling
into the bunk beds situated along the back of their teepee house complete with
self-sustaining garden.
Even though Ben makes it clear the
family will continue to live on as normal, bipolar wife Leslie (Trin Miller),
who we only actually meet in dream sequence, slits her wrists in the
psychiatric institution her conservative parents placed her in. The parents,
who predictably live in direct contrast to the Cash’s lifestyle, ban Ben and
the children from the funeral of their beloved spouse/mother and threaten
arrest if seen on the property. After much convincing from the children, Ben
packs up the VW bus affectionately named “Steve” and hits the road with the six
children who know nothing about living in society.
The group makes it to Ben’s sister’s
(Kathryn Hahn) house where the children experience video game violence and
store-bought chicken for the first time. Conflict arises when Ben is openly
honest about Leslie’s death with his nephews, and when he uses second youngest,
Zaja (Shree Cooks), to show up her much older cousins in intellect. While the scene is comical and puts you on
Team Cash, Cooks recites lines robotically, and it can be hard to take her
knowledge as authentic.
The Cashes, who read Lolita, are banned from using the “non-word
‘interesting’”, and receive weapons as gifts for Noam Chomsky Day, are
overwhelmed with the excess and luxury of their grandparents’ lifestyle. After the
family is thrown out of the funeral for vocalizing Leslie’s wishes to be
cremated, middle child Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton), who doesn’t quite fit in
with the knife-savvy family, becomes an advocate for a life spent with the
grandparents he doesn’t really know.
While it is clear that it’s
difficult for the Cash children to function in normal society, their loyalty to
their father and their wish to execute the mission “Save Mom” is nothing short
of endearing. Even through their father has doubts about their safety with him,
the children are adamant that he is their best and preferred option.
After all of this (mostly) genuine
emotion, Ross ends the film with a song and dance. It’s a nice loop back to the
beginning, which featured a spur-of-the-moment song around a bonfire, but this
one seems a little hokey. I want to believe it and be an advocate for its
effectiveness, but I wasn’t sold. It seemed contrived and artificial. The sentiment is there: Mom’s favorite song
(“Sweet Child of Mine”) in a celebration of her life, even though she was
temperamental, on top of a mountain complete with song and dance. Yet, it plays
as if Ross is forcefully trying to find a tie back to the beginning of the
film.
The breakout star of Captain Fantastic is undoubtedly
intelligent George MacKay who plays eldest son Bodevan. The British born actor
has just the edge he needs to play socially awkward and inexperienced Bo, who’s
college education we are rooting for in the background of the film. We buy his self-proclamation of Maoism and
his Ivy League acceptances (is growing up in the wilderness what gets you into
Harvard these days?). We laugh at his artless conversations with a cute girl
and can’t help but love him when he drops to his knees and declares his love
after 12 hours of knowing her. He is a quirky star in the making.
Also noteworthy are the original
soundtrack of songs that shout “Road trip!” and the honesty in which Ross
captures the emotions of seven very different family members. Upon announcing
the death of his beloved, Mortenson seems callous, but by the end of the film,
the audience is convinced he is struggling in his own way. How else should a
mountain man react? We are given authentic mourning, joy and love. Ross shoots
for our hearts and wins over our whole bodies instead with ethereal landscapes
and relationships we can all identify in our own lives.
Director: Matt Ross
Producer: Lynette Howell Taylor, Jamie Patricof,
Shivani Rawat, Monica Levinson
Writer: Matt Ross
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, George Mackay, Samantha
Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Trin
Miller, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Erin
Moriarty, Missi Pyle, Frank Langella, Ann Dowd
Run Time: 118 minutes
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