Hello everyone! Today we will be digging into the beauty of “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001), directed by Wes Anderson. This film goes into a story of a once-shiny family and their fall from grace with Anderson’s signature bright colors and amazing film composition. 

The story follows the family patriarch, Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his family of grown children after they have drifted apart. His children are tennis stars on the verge of a breakdown. Richie (Luke Wilson), recently widowed father Chaz (Ben Stiller) and his adoptive daughter (which she is constantly reminded of) Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) were all seen as child prodigies growing up with their own sets of talents. 

As they grew older, Chaz and Margot grew resentment towards their divorced father who they saw as a careless parent. Royal begins to try to rekindle his relationship with his children even though he knows nothing personal about them. He goes as far as to fake a terminal illness in order to see them together once more. But he has to go farther to get them to renew their relationships. 

The editing of the film is done extremely well to convey the tragic, but often hilarious and touching, story of the Tenenbaums. The story is told in the format of a story book which is clearly shown at the very beginning, and the story’s quirky illustrations become the sets and characters. Parts of the story are presented as chapters that progress the story. 

Anderson also uses a lot of bright colors in many of his projects (such as “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox”) to lighten the mood of the peculiar stories he tells. In this film, there is a constant haze of yellow up until an attempted suicide, after which the color shifts to blue. The color of red seems to symbolize the aggressiveness of the family, while the blue shift illustrates the character’s depression taking over for that split second. 

The detail of the sets and costumes bring a lot of personality to the film. The set used as the center for the entire film is the Tenenbaums’ rambling mansion. The house seems to be stuck in the 70s with an abundance of brightly colored furniture and appliances, and in a way the characters’ lives are also frozen in time from decades before. The inside of the house is filled with bright pinks, blues and yellows. Though the house is divided into different subsections, the overall colors seemed to combine into a  light color palette. 

The costumes also follow the color scheme and are very simplistic, as each of the children stay in their style of outfits throughout the film. Margot is constantly seen in dresses that have horizontal lines with colors that fit the room color that she is, and always accessorized with a fur coat. As for her brothers, Chaz is only seen in a bright red track suit, while Richie wears a brown suit with a sweatband. These outfits symbolize the traits that each character possesses. Chaz is a uniform man who likes things done in the right way, Richie was once a famous tennis star, and Margot wanted to be successful and famous. 

The film sequences focus on the characters as they each discuss their situations. One of my favorite scenes of the whole movie is when Royal tells his children that he is ill with cancer but his son, Chaz, doesn’t seem to care much for his father’s situation. The shot of this scene puts Chaz in the direct center of the camera while he is surrounded by stained glass. These steady shots allow the viewer to focus on the emotion of the character, and the perfectly aligned shots make the film artistically beautiful. 

“The Royal Tenenbaums” is an amazing film for anyone who loves Wes Anderson’s film style or anyone who loves films that show a great attention to detail. The story also gives a good message to the audience; to love your family for their strengths and weaknesses. This film is currently available to stream on Tubi, and I would highly recommend it for anyone who loves films and beautiful cinematography.