CAPTAIN FANTASTIC PATCH
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC SERIES

to severe depression where she’d become almost catatonic.”īen: “She slit her wrists. She’d have violent mood swings, ranging from mania, where she’d be elated. were killing each other over nothing.” (0:47)īen’s brother in law Dave tells Ben, referring to Leslie’s death, “We’re devastated.”īen: She had a mental illness, bipolar affective disorder. Rellian asks, “What kind of crazy person celebrates Noam Chomsky’s birthday like it’s some kind of official holiday?” (0:44)īen, referring to wine: “It’s not crack.”īen: ”Crack is a crystallized, highly addictive derivative of the stimulant cocaine. His daughter Kielyr describes the protagonist of Lolit a to Ben as a “ child molester.

But these flaws don’t prevent Captain Fantastic from offering an affecting and provocative ride that (nearly) justifies that standing ovation.Ben tells his children, “All of those things are true, but Mom does not have enough of the neurotransmitter serotonin to conduct electrical signals in her brain.” (0:13)īy telephone his sister Harper tells Ben, referring to Ben’s wife, “Leslie killed herself last night.”īen tells the children, “Last night Momma killed herself.”īy telephone Leslie’s father Jack tells Ben, “I’m in no mood to discuss the particulars of her funeral with you.” (0:21)īen mocks business to the children: “These prices are insane.” (0:30)

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC SERIES

The relatively tidy ending also feels slightly lazy after a series of more challenging plot twists. Mining comedy from a cute young kid who says inappropriately grown-up things isn’t clever – it’s a trope borrowed from rubbish ’90s sitcoms. However, the film sometimes lets itself down. Although Mortensen’s character is supposed to be the hero, Ross makes him intriguingly complex: Ben is smart and clearly devoted to his family, but just too proud and prickly to be completely likeable. The socially inexperienced Bodevan enjoys his first kiss with a worldly teenage girl he meets at a trailer park the family robs a supermarket in a standout scene soundtracked by Bikini Kill’s ‘Rebel Girl’ and Ben clashes catastrophically with his disapproving father-in-law (Frost/Nixon’s Frank Langella). But when Ben learns that his wife has committed suicide, the Cash clan are forced to reconnect with mainstream society so they can attend her funeral.Īt this point, Captain Fantastic becomes a unique fusion of road movie, culture-clash comedy and redemption story. In the first scene, eldest son Bodevan (talented young Brit George MacKay) kills a wild deer before his sisters gut and bone the animal for dinner. Home-schooled and trained by Ben to fend for themselves, these kids are smart, strong and skilled.

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC PATCH

For several years Ben ( Lord Of The Rings star Viggo Mortensen) has been raising his six children almost completely off the grid on a self-made campsite in an isolated patch of Pacific Northwest forest.

Writer-director Matt Ross (also an actor, who plays Gavin Belson in HBO’s Silicon Valley) introduces us to Ben Cash and his family as they enter a crisis. When this surprising two-hour drama was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May, it reportedly received a 10-minute standing ovation from the famously tricky crowd. Captain Fantastic may sound like a lame superhero flick named by a bored and tired director, but it’s actually the sort of offbeat but feelgood indie film that could become a sleeper hit.

Captain fantastic