Capitão Fantástico

Very well crafted and acted film. And it's just short of a masterpiece. But most reviewers here missed the obvious: Ben is a totalitarian monster.

Kielyr explains the movie to us when forced by her dad to explicate Lolita. And Ben finally sees it himself in the end: "It was a beautiful mistake."

This movie challenges lots of things that we wrongfully take for granted in today's society. Mortensen is brilliant for yet another time and all the cast is simply breathtaking.

The concept of the movie and the backstory were brilliant. A touching movie, heartwarming and brilliant all along. A father that although strict and sometimes military like, who's also artistic and deeply sentimental. An amazing depiction from Vigo Mortensen. Amazing.

A movie that in a simple but yet elegant way depicts all the things that have altered our society and brings forth lots of the things that really matter. It makes us think about the ways we were raised and rethink the ways in which we want our children to be raised.

This is a movie well worth your time. One of the best movies I have watched in 2016, by far!

"Captain Fantastic" (2016 release; 119 min.) brings the story of Ben and his 6 kids. As the movie opens, we are looking onto the breath-taking landscapes of western Washington. The camera then zooms in on a deer, and before we know it, the deer is killed by a brutal knifing (with audible gasps in the theater audience). It turns out to be Ben's oldest son. Ben exclaims proudly "today a boy is dead, in his place is a man!". We get to know Ben and the 6 kids, ranging from 17 to about 7 or 8 in age, as they live completely off the grid. As we wonder "where is Ben's wife/the mom?", we learn that Leslie is in the hospital due to bipolar disorder. One day Ben drives into town to call the hospital to see how Leslie is doing... At this point we're not event 15 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the second feature length from actor/writer/director Matt Ross, who previously directed the under the radar "28 Hotel Rooms". Here he brings something completely different, and a social experiment at that: what if you raise a family completely off the grid, in a utopian but clear anti-capitalistic setting, without any interaction with the "real" world, and what would happen if at one point those children are forced to confront the "real" world. Fascinating idea, and one that Ross examines quite nicely. The movie excels even more due to the performance of Viggo Mortensen, which is out of this world, but truth be told: the six kids are quite outstanding as well. The movie is pretty much perfect for the first 90 min., but then struggles to come to a reasonable conclusion, regretfully. There is also an outstanding score for this movie, courtesy of Alex Somers and performed by Somers and Jonsi (of Sigur Ros). Apart from the score, there are a number of other good song placements throughout the movie (but not Elton John's "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy", if you were wondering). Can't wait to check out the soundtrack.

"Captain Fantastic" won Matt Ross the best director award in the "Un Certain Regard" showing at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The movie finally opened at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati and I couldn't wait to see it. The Saturday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended very nicely, I am happy to say. It seems that, other than the gasps in the opening scene of the movie, the audience really enjoyed the movie. I know I did. If you are interested in a very solid family drama with a unique social experiment, you cannot go wrong with this, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "Captain Fantastic" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Set against the beautiful Pacific Northwest backdrop, Captain Fantastic is easily one of the most nuanced films to come to mainstream cinema in the last few years. It's main plot addresses the struggle when everyone has the best intentions but not the same values. Additionally, the film makes honest and straightforward comments on controversial issues in today's society that are often taboo in the media such as mental illness, the hypocrisy of children's exposure to violence and sex, religion, and the flaws in the American education system. This sounds heavy and uncomfortable but these issues are paralleled in such a way that parts of the film had us in tears; from laughing so hard. Director Matt Ross says the project started as an exaggerated exploration of the difficult choices that must be made in regards to raising children in today's society. I think the film goes a step further and awakens an internal dialogue in each of it's viewers about the way that we live our own lives based on societal influences. Furthermore, the performances given by the perfectly arranged cast enhance your investment in the story in a way that will cause you to question what right and wrong really are when you're only trying to do your best and do what you think is best for those that you love.

I'm a resident and lover of the Pacific Northwest and pretty far left on the political spectrum, so this should have been a film for me. The cinematography is gorgeous. It's well acted and nicely directed. But I had problems with its heavy handedness and Utopian pretentiousness.

Perhaps if I were younger, with a more absolutist worldview, I'd have been able to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy this film without reservation. But it fell flat for me in a number of ways.

First, there are too many things that don't add up, from having a magically fueled bus available at all times despite a lack of that terrible capitalist green stuff to a balanced and varied diet supportive of an extreme training regimen even though living as hunters and gatherers without taking the time or energy to cultivate crops. Everyone manages to stay clean and well dressed despite a lack of electricity or running water. The children are educated to be philosopher-scholars, musicians, theoretical physicists, linguists, endurance athletes and survivalists (all at the same time, as if any one of these challenges would not be a full time endeavor reserved for ones of special gifts and talents) while handling every aspect of their fully self-sufficient lives in their idyllic nature preserve. It's never explained how the family manages to purchase a huge tract of old growth forest or manages to squat without consequence on public land.

Setting aside all of that, I found the political/philosophical point of view of the film heavy handed to say the least. The father inculcates the children with his westernized quasi-Buddhist spiritual philosophy and Marxist ideals; fine. But the film seems intent on antagonizing everyone who doesn't share such views -- though the themes are softened here and there, I guess in an effort to make it seem more open-minded and, thus, palatable to a broader audience.

Personally, though not a Christian, I see no need to belittle and offend those who are. While projecting a supposedly tolerant and nuanced worldview, with some tips of the cap to broad-mindedness as the father realizes he's been perhaps a tad extreme, the film is actually quite intolerant and demeaning of conventional values. Why, for example, is it a good thing to educate the children on how to steal? I've no issue with a nudist lifestyle and have in fact spent time on nude beaches, so I have an understanding of the ways in which removing clothing can strip away pretensions and leave people open and vulnerable in good ways. At the same time, is inflicting one's nudist philosophy on others a good thing? It's also worth pointing out that among the most extreme of contemporary fundamentalists, Wahabi Muslims have this habit of bulldozing the shrines of Sufi Muslims and erecting public toilets in their place as a means to belittle and humiliate. This film, which tries to embody themes that are open and tolerant, in a very real way commits the same offense as the Muslim extremists of Saudi Arabia with a gratuitous scene set in a public toilet.

At the end of the day, for all the messages the film seems to want to carry, it's really a rather thin and hypocritical gruel, blind to the irony of its own intolerance, offering little of lasting value (except a nicely nuanced nutshell review of the Nabikov novel "Lolita").

I've still given the film six stars because it's well crafted and for its efforts to be thought provoking. Those are laudable goals even if the effort ultimately falls far short.