CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (USA 2016) **
Directed b Matt Ross

Review by Gilbert Seah

This new family drama tells the story of an eccentric father, Ben (Viggo Mortensen) who becomes the CAPTAIN FANTASTIC of his 6 children, forcing and training them deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest (though shot in New Mexico), totally isolated from society.

If the plot sounds familiar, Harrison Ford played such a father who did the same in the 1984 Peter Weir film THE MOSQUITO COAST based on the Paul Theroux novel. The novel was much better than the film. But the film did not have as dramatic an impact as this new one – though CAPTAIN FANTASTIC totally bombs in its last 20 minutes. Remove the last 20 minutes and the film would have stood much better as a believable relevant and current family drama.

When the film opens, one of the sons, Bo (George MacKay) has just violently killed a deer. He is now a man having completed his rites-of-age passage. The father praises him. The film goes on to reveal other aspects of the training, a combination of survival skills as well as worldly knowledge in all fields including philosophy and American History. (Math skills seem to be left out in the equation.) When the mother dies, the father is forced to take his family to civilization. The challenges of the outside world are more than Ben and kids had envisioned.

Worst of all, Ben intends to fulfill his wife’s wishes of being cremated while her father, Jack (Frank Langella) plans a religious funeral ceremony.

For a film with this serious a subject matter, the film both written and directed by Matt Ross (28 HOTEL ROOMS) achieves some good humour. It is this humour, mainly derived from the smugness of the all-out-against civilization that hits the right notes. But Ross is also quick to turn the tables. By the mid-section of the film, the audience and the children (as River Phoenix turned against Harrison Ford in THE MOSQUITO COAST) turn against the father.

The dramatic set ups display a good combination of drama, conflict and humour. The best of these is the dinner table scene where his family meets his brother’s family. The conflict between him and his sister-in-law, Harper (Kathryn Hahn), with his brother, Dave (Steve Zahn) trying to cool the fight is brilliantly staged.

The film also contains suspenseful segments (the attempted rescue of one of the sons from the grandfather’s house).

But the film almost succeeds in making both a statement on American consumerism and family values before it all goes bust in its last 20 minutes. The father drives off alone only to discover later than his 6 children has somehow hidden in the bus. How can this be possible if the father is so skilled in survival skills that he had not noticed this. Where can 6 kids, most of them grown up hide in a bus? The removal of the mother’s coffin from the graveyard and performing the cremation ritual is all a little too much, especially with the entire family bursting into song and dance.

Despite the film’s flaws, the performances, especially by the young cast portraying the six children are more than fantastic. The film should be seen for this reason alone.

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