Fantastic Mr. Fox
Directed by Wes Anderson
Voiced by George Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Wallace Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker
Release date: November 25, 2009

My relationship with the movies of Wes Anderson can best be described as strained, to say the least. I have a sympathetic ear for the dysfunction he makes his characters wallow in each movie, but aren’t they all really just singing the same song?; that a family, no matter how damaged and quirky, can get through anything as long as they stick together? He has a definitive style, but more and more I get the impression that he is really telling a variation of the same story and trying to hide it by out-weirding the last one. Considering it to be my loudest objection to his movies, I find it curious that one of the biggest compliments I can give Fantastic Mr. Fox is that it feels like a Wes Anderson movie.

The children’s novel by Roald Dahl that the movie is based on is pretty straightforward. Mr. Fox steals chickens, turkeys, and cider from three wealthy nearby farmers. The farmers band together to try to ambush and kill him. He escapes with his family but ends up trapped and starving. After a spell he hatches a plan to create an underground safe haven and steal from them again out from under their noses while they wait for him to emerge.