The Royal Tenenbaums
Short description
Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline raised three children who were celebrated as prodigies: Chas showed a gift for finance, Margot became an acclaimed young playwright, and Richie was a champion tennis player. After Royal and Etheline separated, two decades of disappointment and estrangement followed, and the family's early promise came to be seen as ruined by the father's behavior. When Royal finds himself out of money, he claims to be gravely ill and returns to the family home, hoping to reconnect with his estranged children. Chas, Margot and Richie have grown into eccentric adults, and the reunion forces them to confront the shadows in their lives.
The film was directed by Wes Anderson, who wrote the screenplay with Owen Wilson. It is the fourth of the 26 films Anderson has directed, following Rushmore and preceding The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Gene Hackman plays Royal, with Anjelica Huston as Etheline, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson as the three children, and Owen Wilson as Eli Cash. On a budget of 21 million dollars, it grossed 71 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.6 out of 10 from 333,000 votes, on TMDB 7.5 from 5,203, while its critics' rating stands at 8.2 from 219 reviews, higher than either audience score.
Its 63 credited cast members and 124 credited crew members reflect a large ensemble production. Released in October 2001, the film runs 110 minutes and mixes comedy with drama.
What's left behind the scenes
- Notably, Brian's sister is named Margot, just like Gwyneth Paltrow's character.
- The biography of Etheline Tenenbaum (Angelica Huston) incorporates some facts from Anderson's mother's life, who became an archaeologist after divorcing his father.
- The glasses worn by Huston's character in the film belonged to Anderson's mother.
- The character played by Danny Glover bears a strong resemblance to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Anderson decided to achieve this likeness after Glover, personally acquainted with Annan, introduced him to Anderson at an event.
- The role of Royal Tenenbaum was written specifically for Gene Hackman by Anderson.
- Two different hawks "play" Mordechai. The first was kidnapped by some ill-wishers during filming to demand a ransom. The filmmakers, unable to wait for their "actor's" return, began filming another hawk, which, as is easy to see, has considerably more white feathers than its counterpart.
- The surname of the main characters was borrowed by the screenwriters Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson from their college friend Brian Tenenbaum, who played one of the paramedics in the film.
- J.D. Salinger’s "Glass Family" series features a character named Bubba Tenenbaum (Beatrice Glass, née Tenenbaum), and the "Tenenbaum Family" itself is practically a prototype of the Glass family, with similarly gifted and numerous children.
- Owen Wilson's character attends a wedding with Native American face paint. In the film "Zoolander" (2001), Wilson’s face in a photograph looks exactly the same.
- The scene in which Margot loses a finger was originally written for Margaret Yang's character from Wes Anderson's previous film, "Rushmore".
- Anderson said he read in the book “From the Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the Most Mysterious in the World” by Konigsburg how the book's characters Claudia and Jamie ran away and lived in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which inspired him to use this in the script.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
