The Royal Tenenbaums

“I had a rough year, dad.”

The whole of Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums builds to those six words, one syllable each. The line carries the weight of a family entombed by two decades of failure, depression and personal rancor, but finding some small path forward, a moment of reconciliation that might keep their disappointments from defining their future. Anderson has a gift for packing big emotions into small gestures – think about the look of recognition on Bill Murray’s face when he finally meets Max Fischer’s father in Rushmore – and this father-son moment pays off the countless other details that make it possible. This is why Anderson’s best work holds up so beautifully on repeat viewings: they’re dense with feeling, yet ruthlessly economical.

Twenty years later, The Royal Tenenbaums feels like his signature achievement, proof that he could manage an ensemble like a complex organism, with many individual parts harmonizing in perfect balance. Where his previous films, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, orbited around one charismatic visionary, this one covers an entire “family of geniuses”, taking care to give proper weight to every person and relationship. There’s plenty of Andersonian touches on the soundtrack, in the costume and production design, and in the crisp, witty exchanges of dialogue, but he never gets lost in his own fussy pointillism. Take a step back and this is a film about a family that’s fallen short of the dreams it had for itself. In that’s it’s touchingly commonplace.

In the middle of this vast sea of melancholy, Hackman splashes around brilliantly as Royal, who’s an important catalyst because everyone has to react to his presence, even if his insensitivity and deceit infuriates them. In Anderson’s neatly ordered world, Royal gets to be the chaos agent, the scamp who eats three cheeseburgers a day with a stomach tumor and “brews some recklessness” in his grandsons by treating them to an afternoon of dangerous and illegal activity. It’s a weird gift for the other Tenenbaums to bond in opposition to him, and then to realize that he cares about them more than they assume. Anderson seems to agree that a little recklessness is what they all need.

Their reward isn’t renewed brilliance, as if togetherness alone would be enough rekindle an old spark within the Tenenbaums. Maybe they were never geniuses at all. Maybe Margot was always a mediocre playwright, and Richie got as far as he was ever going to get on the tennis circuit. In a perfect grace note toward the end of the film, we’re told that Margot’s new play opened to mixed reviews and closed two weeks later. No matter. The Tenenbaums get to be a family again. That’s all the magic the film needs to muster.