Captain Fantastic (2016) - Ross' riveting film of fatherhood is a powerful must-see

♥♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Movie of the Year

+ Best Independent Movie of the Year 

+ Most Moving Movie of the Year  

+ Best Drama of the Year 

 

This superb poster for Matt Ross' Captain Fantastic hints at its protagonist's problems of reconciling with the America that surrounds him while also including pictures of his six cool children

An idealistic father of six great children, whom he and his sick wife have raised isolated from the rest of society in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, following a well-meant but very strict and isolated physical and intellectual regimen, is served the test of his lifetime, as his wife and mother of the children takes her own life.

Captain Fantastic is the wildly impressive second film of great Connecticut-born writer-director Matt Ross (28 Hotel Rooms (2012)), whom you may know through his acting credits in a long list of TV and feature titles. It tells a commanding story with many nuances and powerful ideas: The father has raised his children to be non-religious socialists with strong opinions about their country and its business-driven agenda. This inspires both funny and sharp comments on the consumerist modern world that some of the kids encounter for their first time, when father and kids head south to their wife/mother's funeral. Since the film sympathizes with the protagonist's views, there is a real level of societal criticism to Captain Fantastic as well.

Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises (2007)) cements his position as one of the truly great actors of today in Captain Fantastic, giving complex and awesomely human, heartbreaking life to the character of the father, a man who has gone to extreme lengths to craft the most perfect existence he could imagine for his children, and yet now has to come to terms with the realization that what he has given them isn't perfect, and that perfect existence won't exist for them going forward either.

Viggo Mortensen is staggeringly great as Matt Ross' Captain Fantastic, for which he deserves great accolades

Mortensen is surrounded by an extremely impressive bunch of kids, all six of them, who must have gone through quite a lot for the film, which also must have been highly challenging to make due to most of the key actors' being children. Nicholas Hamilton (Strangerland (2015)) and Shree Crooks (American Horror Story (2015-16)) stand out in the bunch, as well as George McKay (Bypass (2014)), who is awesome and intense as the oldest son, Bo. McKay was also memorable for his solid performance in the comparable, great and ultimately equally uplifting Pride (2014).

Kathryn Hahn (Tomorrowland (2015)), Steve Zahn (Treme (2010-13)) and Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon (2008)) all give fine, nuanced performances as members of the estranged family, who make the funeral difficult for our unconventional family unit, which is provocative not only to them but also for us.
Captain Fantastic is an unexpectedly intense experience, definitely the most moving film I've gone to in a cinema in a very long time. It's got an infectious sincerity to it and is adorned with great cinematography by Stéphane Fontaine (A Prophet/Un Prophète (2009)). It's both very beautiful and very sad. An intensely rich film that says a lot and deserves to be seen wide and broadly, and more than once. I personally can't wait to see it again.

- Go see Captain Fantastic!

 

 Related posts:

 

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown

Box office: 4.3 mil. $ (North America only) and counting

= Too early to say

[Captain Fantastic premiered January 23 (Sundance) and runs 118 minutes. Ross was inspired to write it both as a child of a mother who believed in alternative living and as a parent now himself, reflecting on how to be that in the best way. Read a fine interview with him here. Filming took place in Washington, Oregon and New Mexico from July 2014 on. The film enjoyed a long standing ovation at its Sundance premiere and a 10-minute standing ovation at its Cannes premiere, where it won Ross the Best Director prize of the Un Certain Regard section. It opened #34 in just 4 theaters to a solid 93k $, peaking so far in 550 theaters in North America. The grosses of only 4 foreign markets are public yet, and the film has yet to open in most markets, so its gross may still well double. Captain Fantastic is certified fresh at 79 % with a 6.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Captain Fantastic?