Captain Fantastic
Cert: 15A. Now showing.
BEN (Viggo Mortensen) is taking his role as a father perhaps a little too seriously. Living off-grid in deepest, darkest Oregon, he drills his six children each day in everything from hunting and gutting deer to sustainability and political theory and even armed combat. They are cut off from the world, which is the way he likes it, with only occasional trips in the family bus to the local village to get supplies.
In many ways, writer-director Matt Ross’s creation is an extreme take on the paranoid post 9/11 father, here desperately trying to equip his children, ranging in age from pre-schooler to undergrad. The chinks in Ben’s design show-up when the children’s hospitalised mother takes her own life and a road trip out into the world is necessary to attend the funeral. Ben and his charges know everything but in some ways their unorthodox homeschooling has ill-equipped them to fit in. This is brought into sharp focus as they meet boorish cousins, romantic interests and their grandfather (Frank Langella) who hates Ben.
Ross stirs up some fascinating discussions in this indie drama, especially in those scenes where Ben’s children are pitted beside their contemporaries. One involving his tiniest daughter (the gorgeous Shree Crooks), her older suburban cousins and education is engrossing.
This, Stéphane Fontaine’s shimmering cinematography and a generally tight cast are to be commended. What ruins Captain Fantastic are its less than authentic dabbles with comedy, such as the fumbling attempts at first love by George MacKay as eldest son. Even worse is the turgid gooey tone the ending is drowned in.