Movie review: ‘Captain Fantastic' is quite marvelous

There's no character named Captain Fantastic in "Captain Fantastic," but it might as well be the nickname for the film's protagonist Ben (Viggo Mortensen), a wise, passionate, outspoken former resident of Boulder, Colorado, who, when his wife's mental illness started to get out of control, packed up the whole family — himself, his wife Leslie and their six kids — and moved to the woods. The plan was to build a ramshackle home amongst the hills and trees and streams, and raise the kids while living both off the land and off the grid. Hopefully, Leslie would get better.

But the film's wondrous opening scenes of idyllic nature, of clothing made with a sewing machine and fires started with flint, of reading material for the kids that ranges from classic fiction to survival manuals, soon reveals that Leslie has been in the hospital for three months, and Ben is doing his best to keep order to the family's offbeat life.

The range of emotions in actor-turned-writer-director Matt Ross' script suggests that Ben is not going to have an easy time of it. The kids' ages stretch from about 8 to 18. He's in charge of their home schooling, in all sorts of traditional subjects, but also runs them through "training sessions" in "survival, fighting, killing, if need be." In areas of "normalcy," there's music, performed live, around those campfires, and there are holidays to celebrate — nothing as gauche as Christmas, but they do recognize their own Noam Chomsky Day each year.

Most important in this good man's attempt to always do the right thing is his insistence that everyone follows rules. For instance: Don't make fun of people; avoid using the word "interesting"; speak only in a language that we all understand (this is made note of when some of the kids start babbling in Esperanto).

Yet with all of this positive energy, life keeps throwing curves. Leslie, who is only seen in dreamy, happy flashbacks of better times, kills herself in the hospital, and Ben, who believes in dealing directly and truthfully, gathers the kids together to bluntly tell them, adding, "She finally did it, but we will go on living exactly the same way we have been."

This does more than send a disturbing ripple through the family; it also puts them aboard their converted school bus (named Steve) for a trip to mom's funeral, even though her wealthy bastard of a father (Frank Langella), has told Ben, by phone (they use a payphone in a nearby town), that if Ben comes near the funeral, he'll have him arrested.

So begins a road trip that features a couple of stops — one to visit Ben's sister's family, one at a camp site — that, if the scenes were excised, would have made the slightly long film feel more streamlined. But the trip also provides some welcome touches of humor, one of which begins as a confrontation with authority when a cop stops them for a broken tail light, while another, in keeping with Ben's attempt to make his kids educated radicals, has them pulling off five-fingered discounts at a supermarket as he teaches them to "free the food!"

The film is as much about the kids (George MacKay as Bodevan and Nicholas Hamilton as Rellian are standouts) and their struggles and joys, as it is about the adults. Mortensen's earthy and quietly complex performance exposes an inner conflict concerning whether he is or isn't doing the right thing, and Langella's portrayal of a stubborn, powerful man who doesn't like to be challenged is a forceful and finely controlled one.

The script eventually falters with a dip into near-cliche territory involving an accident and a hospital visit, but in the end this is a gentle, unorthodox, big-hearted movie about families and free spirits and never bowing to conformity.

— Ed Symkus covers movies for More Content Now.

"Captain Fantastic"

Written and directed by Matt Ross

With Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella, George MacKay, Nicholas Hamilton

Rated R