Every week, you can rent a movie on iTunes for 99 cents. The same deal is usually available on Amazon but I don’t know how to find it without searching for the specific title. And I have an Apple TV so I just go the iTunes route. This series is my bargain rental chronicle.
Movie Title: Captain Fantastic (IMDB)
Actors/Actresses I recognized: Viggo Mortenson, that kid from 11.22.63 that ends up nutso, the girl that plays the younger version of the redheaded daughter in Oculus (yeesh), the chick who has a shallow vagina in We Are The Millers, and the grandparents but not sure exactly what they’re in.
Very Basic Plot: (THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS…OBVIOUSLY) So basically this dude is raising his six (yes…six) children in the woods. But it’s not just like, “we’re going off the grid” but more more like “I am going to train you to be super-people both physically and intellectually”. His wife dies and he has to travel back into the bowels of civilization for the funeral he was told very explicitly to stay away from by the “I’m more powerful and scary than you” grandfather/father-in-law figure. When they arrive to stay with relatives, some implore him not to raise his kids in the woods because “YOU’RE GOING TO GET THEM KILLED” and they “need to learn about the world.” He appropriately responds by having the 6yo recite the Bill of Rights. Then tells her regurgitation of facts is for the weak minded and she gives a more “impressive” interpretation in her own words. Point made. Others threaten him with The Law. He eventually decided to leave his kids at Nana and Pop Pops when he realizes that he might be just a liiiiiitle bit crazy. But obviously the hill children hide in Steve’s undercarriage (Steve is the bus…duh), they dig up the mother’s body, flush her ashes down a toilet at the airport, and head back “home”…or most of them do…one goes to Namibia? The movie ends on a touching scene with the kids all bringing in fresh food from the farm lands while dad packs their school lunches. Stare wistfully out of the window while your kids do their homework. Roll credits.
What I thought: I loved it. I accept the ending for what it is and, while I think it might have been a cop out, I see the point it tried to make.This movie wasn’t an endorsement of either lifestyle. The normal people looked crazy and the mountain folk looked crazy. One makes you uncomfortable because it’s a reflection, the other because it’s unfamiliar. In the end, neither could win and neither did win. Overall, the cinematography was beautiful and the storyline was thoughtful. And Viggo got to be the dirty, crazy mountain man we all love so much.
What Rebecca thought: This week, I had a friend squatting at my apartment so you get a 2-for-1 review. In general she thought the movie would have been masterfully done if it had just ended at the biggest “rip your heart out” moment. The happy tied-with-a-bow ending was unearned and took the film from artful to pandering. She also thought “that guy who played the dad” could have acted some of his scenes better.
While I may have gotten a little too shrill when I told Becks that “that guy” was Viggo Mortenson and refused to accept his acting as mediocre (#Viggo4Lyfe or really #ViggoSinceTurningLate20s), I DO see her point. The movie could have driven home an entirely different point if it chose what she described as the more “artful” route. I think that either way it would have been somewhat unsatisfying because leaving it as an utterly heart wrenching story would have just been a different flavored cliche. We agreed to disagree and poured some more wine.
Found a couple days later: Here is an article talking about the type of movies that the distribution company, Bleecker Street aims to put out and how Captain fits into that mold.