Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox is an animated film but one designed for adults, or at least adults that like animated film. I don’t belong to that group so I struggled somewhat.  Even though I could appreciate Wes Anderson’s whimsical  humour, both visual and verbal  (I have not read the novel by Roald Dahl but assume Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach deserve credit for a significant portion of the latter) being perhaps too much of a realist, talking animals have never been my thing.     

Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) earns his living as a newspaper columnist and lives in a tree with his wife, Felicity (Meryl Streep), and son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman).  Bored with the straight life he decides to rob the farms of the mean spirited Messrs. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean who in retaliation decide to wipe him off the face of the earth. And so the animal and human worlds collide.

Typical of Anderson’s work Fantastic Mr. Fox is at heart a story of odd-ball family dynamics as seen from the child’s point of view. Not that the film is for kids – the dialogue is too sophisticated and the stop-motion animation perhaps a little too quaint to hold much appeal for younger audiences.  The quaintness has its own retro appeal and voice work is excellent with George Clooney very recognizable as Mr Fox but Meryl Streep not at all recognizable as his wife, something which given her chameleon-like skills is perhaps not so surprising.  Even so, whilst those with a fondness for old school animation will enjoy Fantastic Mr. Fox for everyone else it is probably going to be a curio in an already wilfully curious oeuvre.

 

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