movie review - Royal Tanenbaums
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-eight years and a million words
Vancouver, 2002.01.18
This is a flick about a family that comes together after years of failure and heartbreak. It's a human tale, and has a delicious pace and feel to it. While it's a fairly straightforward story, the performances are just amazing (I think Bill Murray has found a second career in the kind of work he's done with these writers, and the role of the absentee father must have been written for Hackman).
The technique of gluing the story together with touches of narrative, flashbacks and 'chapter' summaries works very well. All in all, a great flick.
Recommended.