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 REVIEW Beautiful Loser Young filmmakers Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson have created a comic masterpiece with Rushmore. BY KIM MORGAN |
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Rushmore Rated R Opens Friday, Feb. 5 When a movie goes beyond perfection to become a milestone in one's life, it is a transcendent experience. Woody Allen expressed this perfectly in Hannah and Her Sisters when, musing over a botched suicide attempt, his character reveals that it was the Marx brothers' Duck Soup that kept him living. "I started to feel, How can you even think of killing yourself?" he says. "Look at all the people up there on screen.... You know, what the hell? It's not all a drag.... I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never going to get and just enjoy it while it lasts." For some, watching Rushmore will be such a milestone. It was for this reviewer--the film is that good. Directed by Wes Anderson and co-written and co-produced by Owen Wilson, Rushmore is one of the most creative, touching, hilarious and unique pictures in years. The 29-year-old director's second film (his first was the underrated Bottle Rocket, which he also wrote with Wilson), Rushmore is more than a movie. It's a sublime work of art that gives hope to a young American film scene larded with Tarantino wannabes. Rushmore is named for the posh prep-school academy that the film's main character, 15-year-old Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), attends with an enthusiasm that borders on pathological. Unlike the rich kids at Rushmore, Max is there on a scholarship, but he's barely passing any of his classes. More interested in extra-curricular activities, he heads numerous clubs, including ones for fencing, bee-keeping and, most importantly, drama. Max is an in-charge kid who fancies himself an adult, and his zeal and arrogance drive the administrators at Rushmore crazy. Spending too much time scheming instead of pursuing academics, Max is placed on "sudden death probation" by Rushmore's crusty headmaster, Dr. Guggenheim (Brian Cox). At about the same time, he meets Herman Blume (Bill Murray), a millionaire who delivers a half-alive speech to the students of Rushmore and makes a strong impression on Max. The father of two of Max's most repulsive classmates, Blume is a sad, lost soul, a prisoner to his cynicism and near-hatred of his annoying kids and burnt-out life. Max is the pinprick that wakes him from his torpor. Impressed by the youngster's entrepreneurial spirit, Blume offers him a job and becomes his friend--until an attractive young first-grade teacher comes into the picture. Despite their age difference, Max develops such an enormous crush on Miss Cross (Olivia Williams) that Blume feels he has to sway the lovesick kid away from his impossible dream. In the process, however, Blume begins to have feelings for Miss Cross, and he and Max become mortal enemies. Both begin to act with the impulsive desperation of little boys. But hatred is not a feeling that sticks to anyone in this film, and no one entirely succumbs to severe resolutions. Rushmore is too smart and too clever for any easy stitch-ups like suicide, death or ironic humor, and this is what makes it so ingenious and so blissfully genuine. Despite every opportunity to turn toward the obvious, Rushmore's eccentric and innovative style consistently surprises. On a par with the best of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Woody Allen and the Marx brothers, Anderson's film has a distinct voice and a style as creative as it is perfectly executed. Like the work of those comic greats, Rushmore contains a strangeness that is likable and smart but subversive enough to border on the psychopathic. The script is unpredictable, witty and wise; the camera movements, from slow motion to jumps to amazing montages, are artistic but always apt; and the bright colors and timeless look are happy yet haunting. The acting is not just stellar but mind-boggling. Without the film's two compelling leads, Rushmore just wouldn't be the film it is. Newcomer Schwartzman is the most unique teen actor ever to hit the screen, and he fills the movie with a geeky glory that never grows precious or tiresome. Similarly stunning is Rushmore's old-timer, Murray, already a mad genius. He turns a slovenly, bitter, midlife-crisis character into a profound composite of pathos, humor and complexity, and he does it with glorious understatement. In one scene, when Blume learns that Max's father is a barber and not a brain surgeon (as the kid has claimed), Murray faces the dad and simply blinks. In one look that takes about three seconds, Murray reveals a recognition, reverence, sympathy and sweetness that most actors can't express in a lifetime of movies. Rushmore is a tonic, as Duck Soup was to Woody Allen's
character in Hannah and Her Sisters. The anarchic, lovable, oddly
wise yet impishly childish Max is Blume's Marx brother--his warped key
to a happier universe. When Blume asks Max, "What's the secret?" Max
tells him: "Find what you like to do and do it for the rest of your
life. For me it's going to Rushmore." For some, that thing will be watching
Rushmore, a fresh, beguiling masterpiece and a milestone in filmmaking. - - - - - - - - - - - -
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