Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark...

Friday, March 7, 2014

Friday's Top 5... Wes Anderson Characters

#5: Sam & Suzy, Moonrise Kingdom

These are two characters at a tricky stage in their development, at the cusp of adolescence they aren't quite kids anymore, but they still have the innocence of kids. They're play acting a grand romantic story of star crossed lovers, but the hints of melancholy around them, the fact that they are both fundamentally lonely people who have found a kindred in each other, make the relationship dead serious.

#4: Margot Tenenbaum, The Royal Tenenbaums

I'm not really a Gwyneth Paltrow fan, but I can't really imagine anyone else in the role of Margot Tenanbaum. Paltrow is deadpan perfection as the sole daughter of the Tenenbaum clan, a depressed playwrite with half a finger missing. The Royal Tenenbaums is a film stacked with great lines, but Paltrow's reading of "I do, kind of" in response to Margot's husband asking if she loves him anymore is probably my favorite.

#3: Pretty Much Every Character Bill Murray Has Played

Herman Blume, Raleigh St. Clair, Steve Zissou, Badger, Mr. Bishop - I think movie lovers everywhere can be thankful that Bill Murray and Wes Anderson found each other. The two have proven to be a perfect fit in film after film, and will hopefully keep on creating great characters together for years to come.

#2: Royal Tenenbaum, The Royal Tenenbaums

Royal Tenenbaum may be a bastard, but lord is he ever a magnificent bastard. As played so joyfully by Gene Hackman, and depicted so affectionately by Anderson, he's a character that you can never quite hate no matter how terribly he behaves. He may be a selfish asshole, but when he says "I want this family to love me" it's never anything but sincere, and in it's way it's quite moving.

#1: Max Fischer, Rushmore

Uncommonly intelligent, mature but not quite as mature as he'd like to think he is, eccentric and a true individual, Max Fischer is the kind of character that the teenage protagonists of a lot of films try but fail to be. Together, Anderson and Jason Schwartzman perfected the type and created the hands down best character in Anderson's oeuvre.

No comments: