I first saw this film when I was about sixteen on one of my
frequent trips to the cinema with friends. When one of them told me about it I
thought it sounded awful. I was used to seeing action and comedy films on a Friday
night and didn’t want to sit through a film about some family and an old man
dying. In the end the film completely shocked me and helped to introduce me to
the joys of cinema, seeing passed the Friday night popcorn movies to which I
was accustomed. It was also the first of many Wes Anderson films that I fell in
love with. I often site Martin Scorsese’s Taxi
Driver as being the film which opened my eyes to cinema but thinking about
it now, this film did the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent, two years
earlier.
Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) is thrown out of his house by
his wife (Anjelica Houston) before their three genius children (Ben Stiller,
Luke Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow) reach their teens. This has a far reaching impact
on all of their lives and none of the three grow up to fully reach their
potential. Playwrite Margot (Paltrow) stops writing, Tennis champion Richie (Wilson
