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  Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Anjelica Huston head an all-star cast in Wes Anderson's new film,"The Royal Tenenbaums."

By Kelly Haigh

Daily Bruin Contributor

Family isn’t a word. It’s a novel.

The presence of literature is as strong as any other in “The Royal Tenenbaums,” Wes Anderson’s latest contribution to America’s canon of reputable cinema.

Elaborating on the style of his first two offbeat offerings, “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” is a fresh manifestation of the director’s informed approach to filmmaking.

Anderson has created a film that functions like a book.

“The Royal Tenenbaums” quite literally derives its structure and organization from the familiar form of the novel, complete with a prologue, chapters and a somber narrator (Alec Baldwin). The format brings to mind those old Disney fairy tale features, which always opened with a reverent shot of some dusty tome of yore.

“I had this idea that rather than the movie being based on a book, the movie would be the book,” Anderson said.

The movie definitely has the feel of a novel, even if it’s not something that a person could curl up with on a rainy day.

His fairy tale draws some inspiration from a whole slew of modern literary giants, many of whom graced the pages of The New Yorker at some time or other. Anderson cites J. D. Salinger, E. B. White, James Thurber, F. Scott Fitzgerald and countless others as influences of which he may or may not be fully conscious. Their voices harmonize with Anderson’s and create a world which is simultaneously cinematic and literary.

Naturally, the Tenenbaums are introduced with all due literary glorification.

There are three children in the Tenenbaum family, our narrator explains, all of whom were once prodigies in various realms. Chas (Ben Stiller) played the real estate market and amassed a veritable fortune as a teenager. Adopted daughter Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) was a prolific playwright who received a Braverman Grant in the ninth grade. Richie was a natural at tennis and won the U.S. Nationals three years in a row.

Simultaneously sustaining and stifling the children’s genius is the cataclysmic patriarch Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman). He left his home, his children and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston), and after a brief period of incarceration, he took up residence alone at a mythic New York hotel.

The film picks up about twenty years later, when the glory of the Tenenbaums has been all but forgotten. All of the children, and Royal, are suddenly and simultaneously inspired to return to the house from whence they came.

Once reunited, the Tenenbaum family attempts to come to terms with the past and make do with the future.

The theme of pride coming before a fall may initially seem to come from Anderson’s own fears about potentially fleeting success. But he insists that the theme has no personal relevance.

“I don’t say that I have any fear about it, but I’m interested in it. I think it’s inevitable,” Anderson said. “I just like the idea of people who peaked early, and then what are they gonna do? There can sometimes be a mood associated with people that are in that sort of situation. There’s a kind of a sadness ... some kind of faded glory.”

Anderson’s previous successes and decisive creative vision attracted a high-profile cast, including Gene Hackman, the crown jewel of the bunch, whom Anderson strove tirelessly to woo.

Several of the other players, as well as a majority of the crew, have worked with him before and have become a part of his own chosen family.

For the script, Anderson once again teamed up with actor and co-writer Owen Wilson. Their collaboration is the factor that most distinctively flavors their prior films; that flavor can certainly be detected here.

“The Royal Tenenbaums” doesn’t have the chipper spunk of “Rushmore” or the playful optimism of “Bottle Rocket;” it is a darker and decidedly more dramatic turn, but it still carries Anderson and Wilson’s trademark sense of humor.

Anderson’s precedent of precise visual style and atmosphere is also maintained. A great amount of attention was paid to set decoration, props and costuming.

“(The characters) all wear the same things (throughout) the whole movie, the house has not changed that much, and even in the neighborhood where they live, a lot of the cars are older cars; there’s something a little faded about it,” Anderson said.

Every aspect of the film, whether conceptual or material, somehow contributes to the theme of clinging to faded success.

“You go into a closet and there are 250 board games that are all beaten up, and it doesn’t look like anybody’s bought a new one in 25 years, but these are still there, and maybe they still take them out every once in a while, and roll the dice,” he said.

FILM: “The Royal Tenenbaums” opens Dec. 14.