The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 film - half a comedy, half a drama. It is about a family of geniuses who, at some point of their lives, became unhappy and despaired. The father, Mr. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), who left the family many years ago, fakes stomach cancer in order to get in touch with his wife and children again. Although Mr. Tenenbaum has been a terrible father to his children, his contact with them pulls them back together as a family.

The movie utlizes a strange and dark but innovative kind of humour. The characters wear more or less the same clothing throughout the whole film.

The film was directed by Wes Anderson, who also made Bottle Rocket and Rushmore and stars very popular actors like Anjelica Huston as Etheline Tenenbaum, Ben Stiller as Chas Tenenbaum, Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tenenbaum or Bill Murray as Raleigh St. Clair. Gene Hackman won a Golden Globe for his performance and the screenplay by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson was nominated for an Academy Award.

Characters

Perhaps the best feature of the film is its characters - some are loveable, others hateable, but all are quirky and, in an odd way, hillarious.

• Royal Tenenbaum - An excellent lawyer but a terrible father, he intentionally shot one of his sons with a BB gun during a game, and constantly refers to his daughter in public as, "My adopted daughter Margot." In one scene, he lies hooked up to an IV machine, faking stomach cancer, while eating a hamburger.
• Chas Tenenbaum - A genius in international finance, Chas sued his father and had him disbarred because of the BB gun lodged between his fingers and the bonds his father stole from his saftey deposit box when he was ten.
• Margo Tenenbaum - A brilliant playwright, Margot ran away from home for a year and came back with half of one of her fingers missing. She married the psychiatrist Raleigh St. Clair and lives in a bathtub, watching television. She smokes, unknown to anyone else in her family.
• Richie Tenenbaum - A tennis prodigy, Richie is secretly in love with his adopted sister.

Tagline

Family Isn't A Word... It's A Sentence