Captain Fantastic
Directed by: Matt Ross
Written by: Matt Ross
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, George MacKay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Frank Langella, Missi Pyle, Erin Moriarty, Ann Dowd, Trin Miller
Drama - 118 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 12 July 2016
Written by: Matt Ross
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, George MacKay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Frank Langella, Missi Pyle, Erin Moriarty, Ann Dowd, Trin Miller
Drama - 118 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 12 July 2016
You know a film is special when half the audience wants to shower it with awards and the other half wants to argue how obnoxious and wrong-footed the whole exercise is. Count me on the side of the award givers. Captain Fantastic, not a superhero movie by the way, is an astonishingly fresh script giving life to unforgettable characters and leading us to identify with and care about a family just about none of us can relate to in reality. I empathize with Ben, an idealistic father, even though we would most likely have a stunted and awkward conversation in real life.
I have nothing in common with the lifestyle. I have no desire to live in the woods in a subsistence lifestyle physical training in the surrounding landscape and meeting my eventual dinner face to face with a knife. However, the extent to which writer/director Matt Ross puts me right in the middle of a fluctuating family is extraordinary. Soon after seeing the tongue-in-cheek title on screen, we learn Ben (Viggo Mortensen) has six children, three boys and three girls, ranging from seven to 17. Ben devotes himself to his children even though they live in a true wilderness environment far in America’s northwest somewhere, Washington state perhaps.
I have nothing in common with the lifestyle. I have no desire to live in the woods in a subsistence lifestyle physical training in the surrounding landscape and meeting my eventual dinner face to face with a knife. However, the extent to which writer/director Matt Ross puts me right in the middle of a fluctuating family is extraordinary. Soon after seeing the tongue-in-cheek title on screen, we learn Ben (Viggo Mortensen) has six children, three boys and three girls, ranging from seven to 17. Ben devotes himself to his children even though they live in a true wilderness environment far in America’s northwest somewhere, Washington state perhaps.
Ben’s kids are the smartest, strongest, and most self reliant offspring a man can mold. He champions them as philosopher-kings while they debate fascism, practice knife-fighting skills, and scale a complicated rock wall in the middle of a rain storm. Even the youngest can spout off knowledgeably about the Bill of Rights and Plato. However, these academic achievements and survival skills come at a cost. The children are unable to interact with their peers. They have no phones, no internet, and no electricity; therefore, the first time someone their age mentions a TV show, a movie, or a song, the kids will be as lost as I would be in their harsh environment.
Ben’s sister, Harper (Kathryn Hahn, The Visit) and brother-in-law (Steve Zahn, The Good Dinosaur) argue the children require structure and the stability of public schools. This idea horrifies me. Don’t send the kids to school; it will corrupt them! The seven year old is intellectually superior to her high school cousins. I have nothing in common with the Swiss Family Robinson and everything similar to the suburban cousins, but the film convinced me through nothing but observation this family has something special going on my creature comforts and consumerism will negatively impact.
I enjoy the idea there is a family out there celebrating Noam Chomsky day instead of Christmas. Exchange presents to honor a contemporary intellectual rather than the reason everyone does it which is absentmindedly celebrating a bastardized version of an ancient pagan holiday. Just as it is in director Matt Ross’s house, Ben bans the word ‘interesting’. Why is it interesting? The father prods his daughter to tell him why Lolita is ‘interesting’ which leads her to discover she roots for the protagonist and his pure love for a young girl, even though she recognizes the moral depravity of their situation.
Amongst learning about Ben’s idea of Utopia and enjoying how funny the script is at times, Captain Fantastic boils down to parenting. Do you struggle with raising your children; well Ben will show you one way to do it, even though it takes good parenting to its most extreme. Many critics point out Ben’s methods are not right and are borderline child abuse. I see where they’re coming from but watching the high school cousins drool at the dinner table fixated on mobile device screens seems like a different form of child abuse even though society accepts it as normal.
Ben realizes he has not prepared his children to deal with the inevitable culture clash. The family ventures out into ‘civilized’ society, encounters other people, and all of a sudden his eldest son, Bo (George MacKay), drops to one knee and proposes to the first girl he considers a suitable mate. Their isolation and self sufficiency conflict with modern, digital society and Matt Ross shapes the film sharply enough where I eventually considered our society to be the one which needs to alter its worldview, not the family. A film that convinces me to connect with nature and shrug off my connectivity is no doubt a remarkable one.
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