Fantastic Mr. Fox was one of my favorite movies as a kid and has always been a very personal movie to me and a comfort movie growing up. I had no idea how great the movie really was at the time, I just thought it was really funny and fun to watch. As I’ve grown up I started to interpret the film in a much deeper way.
Wes Anderson’s start to his career as a director was not initially well received by most audiences, but most would consider his work in the stop motion picture Fantastic Mr. Fox to be a major turning point in his career and possibly his best movie. He never attempted stop motion before the movie so his process began as a complete shot in the dark.
Wes Anderson notoriously makes nearly every scene of all of his movies completely symmetrical which creates a quirky feeling. His choices on color schemes, imagery, cinematography, and set design is absolutely phenomenal. The amount of detail put into every miniature object in every frame is incredible. Story wise, this movie is great. They take a new interpretation on Ronald Dahl's original short story titled “Fantastic Mr. Fox ''. The film bases its themes on greed, dysfunctional family dynamics, and Mr Fox's existential identity crisis.
Mr Fox is extremely clever and strong willed. His mind is made up before he listens to anybody. This is perfectly displayed in the very opening scene of the movie. He is completely in tune with his “wild” or primal instincts before he and his soon to be wife settle down and have a child. As he grows older he grows more unfulfilled with his life and he isn’t the same person he used to be. In his boredom he takes a series of risks challenging three local farmers, who are feared by all of the local animals. As the farmers close in on hunting him down, it's not just Mr. Fox that's in danger anymore. He must face the problems he’s caused as well as his problems within himself before they can affect his family and community.
The movie shows all of these wild creatures as civilized, working class members of society.. They act like humans, work jobs, go to school, own homes, and everything else you could think of. Mr Fox fits all the same cliches we’ve seen throughout film in history. He was happy when he was doing the thing he was best at, what he felt he was born to do, what he thinks is his true nature, but since it's dangerous and he has a kid on the way he has to stop for his family. He thinks his life hasn’t amounted to what he wanted for himself after years of working his under-respected job that doesn’t even pay very well. He loses track of who he is and needs something to change. He fears true wild animals in their world like wolves, because it's something he could never be or understand, fully in tune with their primal selves. He inevitably bites off more than he can chew when he keeps stealing more and more from these farmers and puts his family in serious danger, forcing them to burrow deep underground to safety.
The family dynamic throughout the movie between Mr. Fox with his wife, Mr. Fox with his son Ash, and between Ash and his cousin Christopherson is executed perfectly. The characters all feel so relatable and human. I remember as a kid it was the first time I felt really connected to a character on screen. The movie perfectly covers issues with parent approval, trouble with forced marriage, parenting, and finding balance for a happier life. When I say they execute these hard hitting ideas, I really mean it.
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