Clip It: Each day, Jon Davis looks at the world of trailers, featurettes and clips and puts it all in perspective.
Quirky McQuirkerston! This is some offbeat stuff. Look at the color scheme. Look at these wacky characters in the wilderness. They've created their own world and they've never seen ours. What's going to happen? Captain Fantastic, you are too twee for me.
I think there's a tonal problem here. If I'm understanding this correctly, the idea behind this film is what if the good citizens of M. Night Shyamalan The Village were, like, “Road Trip!” That's a comedic premise. Not so, says this trailer. This is a serious movie. There's inspirational music, as Viggo Mortensen with his red pastel suit and amazing technicolor dream children are taking us on an important journey. Even comedic moments are not meant to be funny. People don't know what a rotisserie chicken is, and we hear the gentle sounds of a guitar playing minor notes.
In one scene, Grandpa Frank Langella shoots an arrow at his son-in-law Viggo Mortensen indoors at close range. “If I wanted to hit you, I would have hit you.” Whaaaaat? Who does that? Quirky people, I guess. Even if you are supposed to be the straight man who lives in the real world, you still have to be little bit wacky if you want to make it in this film. I understand there's an undercurrent that they're traveling to see mom's funeral, but if mom's family dresses like the Teletubbies, you can't expect me to take them seriously.
Matt Ross, also known as Gavin Belson in Silicon Valley, wrote and directed this movie. It's unfair to Matt Ross if I picture this as a Gavin Belson passion project and not a real movie made by a real human being who has something he wants to share. And yet, that's the only way I can interpret what I'm watching. Let's hope the movie can pull it together.