Matt Ross
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Filmography
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Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Directed by Jonathan Dayton
influenced Captain Fantastic (2016)
Visuals Plot Themes
Don’t let the publicity photos of the ensemble cast clad in ’70s-era tuxes and flower-child dresses, or even the cloying Mumford-mimicking soundtrack on the trailer, fool you: Captain Fantastic ain’t some twee, cutesy Wes Anderson romp or a Little Miss Sunshine knockoff.
Captain Fantastic borrows from Little Miss Sunshine in cataloguing the misadventures of a misfit family on a road trip, complete with MacKay as a Paul Dano stand-in.
In places, Captain Fantastic explicitly strains for the same kind of crowd-pleasing indie-quirk as Little Miss Sunshine (another film that opens in an atmosphere of psychological crisis and pivots on a fateful family road trip).
This isn't the behavior of radicals bucking the system; it's the antics of characters contrived to hit the quirky, crowd-pleasing notes that made Little Miss Sunshine a hit with audiences.
Yes, Captain Fantastic is competing for this year’s Little Miss Sunshine prize for heart-warming zaniness.
But despite some obvious points of comparisons with previous Sundance hit Little Miss Sunshine, Captain Fantastic doesn’t fully deliver as either a full-on crowd-pleaser or a critical darling.
It’s a story that might remind some of such films as Captain Fantastic and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, both curiously starring Viggo Mortensen, or perhaps Kelly Reichardt’s small dramas set in the American Northwest (Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy).
This is sort of like Captain Fantastic —another Bleecker Street release, like Leave No Trace—but not as quirky (I see you, Hot Dad Viggo Mortensen ), and also sort of like this year’s A24 release Lean on Pete , but not as interested in the ramifications of inherited poverty.
Should she be required to? (These are similar to themes addressed in 2016’s Captain Fantastic .)
Compared to similarly themed fare, the movie is more profoundly affecting than the likable but light “Hearts Beat Loud” and more believable than the colorful “Captain Fantastic.”
With echoes of The Ballad Of Jack And Rose and Captain Fantastic , Leave No Trace is a close study of a father who has turned his back on humanity and the child he raises in this unconventional wilderness lifestyle.
…fight against the system, a la the similarly themed 2016 Sundance hit Captain Fantastic —or some kind of horror of exploitation.
The Mosquito Coast (1986)
Directed by Peter Weir
influenced Captain Fantastic (2016)
Characters Themes Plot
In this regard he has more than a little in common with Harrison Ford’s idealistic father in The Mosquito Coast , whose half visionary, half crazed utopian idyll ended in disaster.
Like Allie Fox from The Mosquito Coast—except kinder and gentler—Viggo Mortensen’s Ben fervently believes in his isolationism and parenting approach.
It has echoes of Peter Weir's least heralded movie, 1986's The Mosquito Coast, where Harrison Ford's bull-headed father risks the lives of the children he's trying to protect.
Captain Fantastic is in some ways a less angry, more commercial take on The Mosquito Coast as a man fights against the norm to do what he believes to be best for his family, but while Peter Weir’s film found little warmth for its patriarch Ross’ heart is far bigger.
In a way it reminds of Peter Weir’s underrated The Mosquito Coast , yet there is much more emphasis on comedy of the indie dramedy variety, which works well.
Mortensen gives Ben's authoritarian bent shadings of softness, openness, especially when he encourages his kids to think their thoughts through (forcing his daughter to go deeper in her literary analysis of Lolita is a nice little scene).
But one can also commiserate when he’s hurt by a verbal assault from one of the kids, and respect him when he apologizes to his brother for failing to abide by his house rules, or coaxes an intelligent response to Nabokov’s “Lolita” from one of his daughters who’s decided to jump ahead on her required reading list, or says a fond farewell to a son who’s chosen to leave the nest.
Ben’s daughter analyzing Lolita—“I hate him but I also feel sorry for him, he loves her so much”—seems to address Ben’s questionable parenting, as does a guardianship showdown with his in-laws.
The film opens with a scene reminiscent of John Boorman's "The Emerald Forest."
All of this is extremely intriguing, calling to mind films like " The Mosquito Coast ," or " Running on Empty ," which had similar cloistered family atmospheres, and charismatic controlling (albeit well-meaning) fathers.
In the tradition of “The Mosquito Coast” and “Running on Empty” (and going back further, “Swiss Family Robinson”), “Captain Fantastic” is all about a family that has gone off the grid in a big way and is now living off the land, isolated from the modern world and all its evil entrapment.
And in plot and approach, Captain Fantastic is a lot like Running on Empty, the 1988 tearjerker about a couple of fugitive revolutionaries who question whether they’ve let down their kids by forcing them into a life they never chose.
As much as it recalls the family road-trip shenanigans of “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Captain Fantastic” may also remind you of “The Descendants,” Alexander Payne ’s drama about a man trying to make peace with his wife as she lies dying.
The Seven Little Foys (1955)
Directed by Melville Shavelson
influenced Captain Fantastic (2016)
Plot
This odd duck by writer-director Matt Ross plays like a survivalist's remake of The Seven Little Foys (1955), that old Bob Hope movie about a widowed vaudevillian struggling to care for his brood of wacky, free-spirited children.
Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
Directed by Ken Annakin
influenced Captain Fantastic (2016)
Plot Themes
It's "Swiss Family Robinson," or that 1970s series of films about "The Wilderness Family."
In the tradition of “The Mosquito Coast” and “Running on Empty” (and going back further, “Swiss Family Robinson”), “Captain Fantastic” is all about a family that has gone off the grid in a big way and is now living off the land, isolated from the modern world and all its evil entrapment.
Written and directed by Matt Ross (“28 Hotel Rooms”), the film at times suggests a Disney movie in the “Swiss Family Robinson” mode with enough Oedipal conflicts to fill a five-gallon bucket.
For this cinematic clan, life is something like The Royal Tenenbaums meets Swiss Family Robinson , with traces of The Great Santini mixed in.
The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)
Directed by Rebecca Miller
influenced Captain Fantastic (2016)
Themes Characters
“Captain Fantastic” joins a small canon of films dedicated to American off-the-gridders, from Sean Penn’s masterful “ Into the Wild ” to Rebecca Miller’s “ The Ballad of Jack and Rose ” and Campbell Scott’s “ Off the Map .”
Living with his well-trained kids in mountain-man isolation, he’s a fiercely protective, unreconstructed leftist like Daniel Day-Lewis’s in The Ballad of Jack and Rose.
Like his younger brother Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton, channelling River Phoenix in Stand By Me ), Bo dreams of escaping into the wider world, into the society his parents rejected.
The Short History of the Long Road (2019)
Directed by Ani Simon-Kennedy
influenced by Captain Fantastic (2016)
Plot Characters Themes
But this isn’t the story of a young woman who resents her free-spirited, irresponsible dad, like the children of the characters played by Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic and Ben Foster in Leave No Trace .
Like Viggo Mortensen’s wildly unconventional father in “Captain Fantastic” (2016) and Ben Foster’s wildly unconventional father in “Leave No Trace” (2018), who raised their children off the grid and on the outskirts of civilization, Steven Ogg’s wildly unconventional father in “The Short History of the Long Road” is leading his teenage daughter down that same path.
Dad’s not in the picture long, but there’s a “Captain Fantastic” element to the portrayal.
It’s a perfect companion piece to other stories about Americans living on the outskirts of a society that has either abandoned them (“Leave No Trace“) or one in which they find it too constraining to survive (“Captain Fantastic”).
He doesn’t know how to act and doesn’t even catch a reference to Mr. Spock on “Star Trek.”
Stephane Fontaine (“A Prophet,” “Rust & Bone”) — makes for an experience that feels as luminous and enriching as practically every widescreen frame.
Ross imbues Ben’s self-contained universe with a magical atmosphere expertly captured by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (“A Prophet”).
Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet") has many angles to cover, given that Mortensen and all six children are often all active players in a scene.
Wise and funny, it’s got glorious photography by Stephane Fontaine (A Prophet) and a tone shot-through with melancholy, loss and regret.
The film's authenticity extends to the natural-light cinematography of the gifted Stéphane Fontaine (A Prophet) and the crisp editing of Joseph Krings (Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead).
The three-word epitaph for the ’60s — “We blew it” — was written in both “Easy Rider” and “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”
What follows looks from a distance like one of those culture clashes that has sustained many an American independent venture since Easy Rider : on one side of the screen, straggly longhairs who make a point of celebrating Noam Chomsky Day, on the other, well-fed squares guzzling on capitalism’s teat.
For this cinematic clan, life is something like The Royal Tenenbaums meets Swiss Family Robinson , with traces of The Great Santini mixed in.
(Think “The Sound Of Music” by way of Vladimir Lenin.)
I think of Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine ,” Brie Larson in “Room ,” Denzel Washington in “Flight ,” to name just a few — and now, Viggo Mortensen in “Captain Fantastic.”
From the moment the movie opens on a deer hunt — in a scene that suggests “Apocalypse Now” by way of “ Lord of the Flies ” — the writer-director Matt Ross makes it clear he has something weightier in store than mindful napping and snacks.
“Captain Fantastic” joins a small canon of films dedicated to American off-the-gridders, from Sean Penn’s masterful “ Into the Wild ” to Rebecca Miller’s “ The Ballad of Jack and Rose ” and Campbell Scott’s “ Off the Map .”