‘Captain Fantastic’ a touching tale of off-the-grid life
aptain Fantastic” opens with a magnificent aerial shot of the treetops of the Pacific Northwest, a verdant, atmospheric prelude to the sensory plunge about to take place.
In the next scene, we’re on the ground, observing a young deer warily making his way through the foliage; he’s being quietly observed by a young man who, within moments, will have captured the animal and swiftly, solemnly slit its throat. He is then joined by his five brothers and sisters who, like him, have slathered their faces in thick, tarlike mud.
These young savages aren’t the feral creatures of a prehistoric era. Rather, they’re the sons and daughters of Ben (Viggo Mortensen), the principled, adamantly independent nonconformist who turns out to be the film’s title character.
His handsome blond features camouflaged behind a bushy beard, Ben and his wife, Leslie (Trin Miller), have been rusticating in the dripping woods with his six kids since the birth of their now-teenage son Bodevan (George MacKay), whose slaughter of the deer is part of a primitive coming-ofage ritual. With Leslie in the hospital, George now oversees a free-range brood of bright, curious, physically brave kids who are as comfortable with a boning knife as they are reading “Middlemarch” while wearing a gas mask.
That last touch is a nod to Ben’s mistrust of an outside world that, by his lights, is fatally commercialized, hypocritical and lazy. Written and directed by Matt Ross, “Captain Fantastic” vividly captures Ben’s overpowering influence on his children, who can’t help but come under his implacably demanding spell: When one of his daughters describes “Lolita” as “interesting,” he lights into her, accusing her of using a “non-word” and insisting that she provide a more nuanced, sophisticated literary analysis. Later, during the family’s annual celebration of Noam Chomsky Day, he gives his 6-year-old son a copy of “The Joy of Sex.”
It goes without saying that, for all his efforts