Even with the luxuries and conveniences afforded by modern technology, raising six children might seem like a monumental task for any set of parents. So you would assume that bringing up a family in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest - hunting your own food, isolated from the outside world and living almost completely off the grid - would be exponentially more difficult. But that's not the case with Captain Fantastic, the sophomore effort from writer-director Matt Ross that wowed audiences at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
It's been more than ten years since Ben (Viggo Mortensen) and Leslie (Trin Miller) purchased a parcel of land somewhere in the Washington forests, and the family's daily ritual of physical training (in the form of trail-running and rock-climbing), education (the kids read Karl Marx, study the Constitution and speak multiple languages) and survival skills (the opening scene features the eldest son stalking and killing a dear with only a hunting knife) has always been enough.
But when Leslie takes her own life after years of battling a mental disorder, her stern and affluent father Jack (Frank Langella) refuses to honor her final wishes, opting instead for a traditional Christian burial and threatening to have Ben arrested if he shows up for the funeral - which doesn't deter this educated mountain man from loading all six children into a ramshackle school bus and driving across the country to New Mexico for a confrontation that has obviously been brewing for years.
Along the way, the kids are exposed to the outside world for what we must assume is the first time, and the culture shock hits them like a freight train. Sure, eight-year-old Zaja (Shree Crooks) can offer an intelligent and thoughtful analysis of the Bill of Rights - something Ben's teenage nephews can't even identify, let alone discuss - but these kids never seen an iPhone, played a video game or eaten fast food. "Are these people sick?" asks one of the girls as they wait in the lobby of a bank. "Everyone is so fat."
While there are scenes which paint Ben's particular method of child-rearing as the superior option, Captain Fantastic isn't afraid to explore the other side of the coin, either. Teenage Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton) blames his father for failing to seek treatment for Leslie, while Bodevan (George MacKay) explodes in frustration when he embarrasses himself by proposing to the first girl he's ever kissed. "If it doesn't come out of a fucking book, I don't know anything!" he fumes, and even though he's been accepted to a slew of Ivy League colleges (that he applied to in secret), neither he nor any of the other kids are even remotely prepared to step into the real world.
When the conflict between Ben and Jack finally comes to a head, creating a rift in the family and causing an unfortunate accident, Ben is forced to accept that despite the merits of his methodology, he's putting the lives of his children at risk on a daily basis. His defiant attitude toward capitalism and excess may serve him well, but is it truly the best thing for his family? It's these sorts of questions that Ross is looking to explore, making a solid case for one extreme while acknowledging the advantages of the other, and never settling on one answer as the definitive choice.
Everyone in Captain Fantastic has been superbly cast, but the film is anchored by perhaps the best performance Viggo Mortensen has ever given. Beneath the tangled hair and overgrown beard are the soft, gentle eyes of a man who truly loves his family, willing to make enormous sacrifices in the name of their best interests, even when those decisions might be at odds with conventional wisdom. It would have been easy to paint Ben as some kind of fanatic religious zealot or closed-minded anti-vaxx crusader, but Mortensen plays him as intelligent and soft-spoken, more than willing to open a dialogue and allow others to defend their position while never preaching about the supremacy of his own way of life. It's a calculated choice by Ross that disarms the audience and makes Ben not only relatable, but downright likeable.
The children don't fare quite as well, unfortunately - with the exception of Bodevan's wide-eyed awkwardness and inner turmoil between his desire to experience the world and his steadfast devotion to Ben, everyone else is given a singular defining characteristic, and not much else: Rellian is a poster child for teen angst, wearing a perpetual scowl and complaining about the family's choice of holidays (they celebrate Noam Chomsky's birthday in lieu of Christmas); Zaja has an obsession with taxidermy that borders on unsettling; and Nai (Charlie Shotwell) refuses to wear pants to the dinner table. While these quirks make it easy to distinguish each child from the next, they offer little in the way of humanizing the characters.
Directing from his own screenplay, Ross makes it easy to fall in love with Ben and his brood, but we get the sense that he might harbor a bit too much affection for them, as Captain Fantastic suffers a bit from Return of the King syndrome. The final twenty minutes offers multiple scenes that could serve as an appropriate ending, but the experience continues trudging along, almost in defiance of the audience. That's not to say there's anything wrong with these final scenes - they're all great moments on their own - but after awhile they begin to feel unnecessary, as if Ross is trying to artificially extend the film for the sake of achieving some unknown goal related to the running time.
But despite its minor issues and propensity to overstay its welcome, Captain Fantastic is a beautiful and moving family dramedy, full of warmth, humor and a generous (but never overpowering) touch of melancholy. Unless Hollywood has a few big surprises lying in wait for awards season, this film could easily find itself among the best offerings of the year.
[Captain Fantastic is currently playing in select theaters. Check your local listings for showtimes in your area.]
