JULY 11, 2016
“Captain Fantastic” may appear to be a story about a subversive family, but Matt Ross’ insightful film turns out to be even more subversive than that.
Years ago, Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife Leslie (Trin Miller) decided to leave the consumerist society around them and drive off with their six kids to live in the magnificent backwoods of Oregon, not in a nice cozy cabin for eight but instead in a large teepee where they live off the land.
All seems to be working out fine until Leslie’s bipolar disorder dramatically worsens, and she is taken away to be hospitalized for treatment. For three months, Ben carries the parenting by himself, teaching the kids how to hunt and skin a deer, to take turns with their chores and to study hard in their home school — they’ve got the workings of government and the works of Nabokov down cold. Plus a little politics thrown in — they’re the kind of family who ignores Christmas but celebrates Noam Chomsky’s birthday.
One day, the family is devastated by the news that Leslie has committed suicide. The kids’ grief is genuine and deep, and once Ben takes the time to console each one, he heads into town to call Leslie’s father Jack (Frank Langella) in order to grieve and get details on the funeral. But Jack, who blames Ben’s irresponsibility for worsening his daughter’s mental state, threatens Ben with arrest if he dares to show up at the family service. Ben knows that Jack means business and that if Ben is arrested, the state could take his kids away from him. But the kids have their way, so everybody hops into the family bus, and it’s Road Trip to Mom’s Funeral!
At this point, I was ready to roll my eyes, assuming I knew how this is all going to turn out. It would be some form of their arriving, a few rough patches happen, Ben does something to prove he’s a good father and wins Jack’s respect, and everyone lives happily ever after. Right?
Hardly. And that’s where “Captain Fantastic” gets really interesting.
There are some genuine laughs as the kids try to enter a society that they barely remember — they’re particularly appalled at 1st-person-shooter video games — but Ross slowly starts chipping away at the pedestal on which he’s placed Ben as a father. Yes, the kids know their amendments to the Constitution, but by being kept away from society for most of their lives, they have developed zero social skills with which they will eventually have to cope when they reenter society as adults.
Though Jack is initially presented as an angry Orange County-Republican type, thanks to Langella’s shading he becomes less of a caricature when he and wife Abigail (the wonderful Ann Dowd from HBO’s “The Leftovers”) meet their grandchildren for the first time, and that interaction with family brings something softer out in the kids, calling into question the wisdom of Ben’s rigid training techniques. Plus the bumps and bruises that the kids have gotten from living in the woods make some observers wonder of the possibility of child abuse. Suddenly, a story that appeared to be black-and-white now is covered in all kinds of shades of gray.
Ross’ direction is solid, and the final half of “Captain Fantastic” takes the story in unexpected directions. But since Ross is an actor himself (he currently is a regular on “Silicon Valley”), it is his work with his cast that is exemplary. Langella and Dowd are veteran pros, and the always reliable indie film stalwarts Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn being their considerable skills to the table. But is the six young actors (George MacKay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell to give them credit) playing the kids who are the film’s biggest surprise, as each brings a depth of character to what could have been kiddie cliches.
But “Captain Fantastic” is all about Viggo Mortensen in what is certainly his finest performance since his Oscar-nominated turn in “Eastern Promises” in 2007. His Ben Cash is a man of many needs — needing to be strong to guide his kids, needing to take the time to grieve his wife, needing to fight to keep custody and needing to be able to look inward to question whether he is indeed a good father. It’s a role of many layers, and Mortensen is more than up to the task.
In the end, “Captain Fantastic” raises the provocative question of “What makes a good parent?” More importantly, it also asks “Who are we to judge?”
GRADE: B+
