Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Director: Wes Anderson

Screenplay: Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach (based on the book by Roald Dahl)

Cast: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman

Music: Alexandre Desplat

Time: 86 minutes

Bottom-line: Non-stop fun; Anderson does it again!

While Wes Anderson’s films usually involve comical characters, Fantastic Mr. Fox is his first (and only) actual animated film thus far. The film employs a technique called “stop-motion animation”, and has George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Anderson, Wallace Wolodarsky and Michael Gambon in the voice roles.

Boggis, Bunce, and Bean

One fat, one short, one lean.

Those horrible crooks so different in looks

Are nonetheless equally mean.

Mr. and Mrs. Fox (Clooney and Streep) are raiding a squab farm, when they get trapped. Mrs. Fox reveals that she is pregnant and makes Mr. Fox promise that he would find a safer job if they get out, and he (reluctantly) agrees. Two years later, the family – now including a son, Ash (Schwartzman) – are settled in a new life. Mr. Fox buys a house in the base of a tree, which his lawyer warns is not safe for foxes. The tree is near the factories and farms of three farmers: Boggie, Bunce and Bean. Ash’s cousin Kristofferson (E. Anderson) comes to live with them, and the two of them don’t get along at all. Soon, Mr. Fox goes back to his thieving ways, and robs all three farmers. The enraged trio set up a plan to kill the fox. The encounters soon turn into deadly games, with the whole fox family exposed to danger.

 

(From left) Kristofferson, Kylie the opussum, Mr. Fox, Mrs. Fox, and
Ash

The film’s production spanned nearly five years, and the result is amazing. Stop-motion animation is painful and requires enormous patience (the famous British franchise Wallace and Gromit took 15 months to make a 30-minute short-film using this technique), but Anderson used a lot of CGI effects too. The details of the animation – from the action sequences to the tears in their face – are immaculate. The team behind the animation work really deserves praise. Fantastic Mr. Fox also showcases Anderson’s quintessential use of colour, and locations, and even the cinematography techniques. Desplat’s score and the songs included in the background blend in superbly with the content.   

 

The three farmers

The characters in the film are quite interesting. The way various families are brought into the picture – the story is written in such a way that each animal can bring out its characteristic features - an aspect I also loved in Zootopia – the values of being a family, and of course, the overall humorous tone of the film make it exciting for all ages. The dialogues are crisp and funny, and all the vocal artists have done a fine job. Some of the best scenes of the film are the ones where Mr. Fox robs the three farmers, the one where they go to rescue Kristofferson, and the climax (the last scene giving a comic twist before the closing credits).

The film tells us a lot about family: on one side, we have a son who is disappointed that his parents admire his cousin more, and on the other, we have a husband obsessed with thievery, who suddenly feels the overwhelming responsibility of being the family man. There are friends and foes, the hunters and the hunted, everyone… and Dahl’s story beautifully brings them all together. As Mr. Fox puts his family ahead of his selfish obsessions, and as all animals put their differences apart and team up against the hunters, we get a nice heart-warming story.

My Rating: 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 92%