The Royal Tenenbaums: A Sinking Battleship

A Sinking Battleship

In the 2001 cult movie The Royal Tenenbaums, directed by Wes Anderson, a seemingly abnormal family, through two decades of unfortunate events, reunites once again. One might watch this movie and infer that the Tenenbaum family's way of reuniting is obscure and most was done out of pure selfishness, but it actually is a representation of an American life. The movie begins with showing that at young ages all three Tenenbaum children found major success in their lives. Chas Tenenbaum creates a successful small business from breeding dalmatian mice, Richie Tenenbaum is a tennis prodigy, and their adopted daughter Margot Tenenbaum received grants from writing short plays. Soon after, the three children find themselves in a severe, post-success, midlife crises. As well as the father of the family, Royal Tenenbaum-who at the beginning of the movie, is portrayed as money leeching and a compulsive liar- produces an extravagant lie about having cancer to gain the sympathy from his former family. Through a series of unfortunate events the three children, and Royal, are all found staying at their childhood home with their mother, Etheline. Spiraling into an uncontrollable story of an absurd, deviant family, that beneath the surface is actually an accurate representation of the average American household.
Adoption always appears as a happy time for the child and the new parents, however, internally it might not seem happy at all. According to Lydia Tarr, a parent who recently adopted a child, “stress is amplified by one hundred percent during the adoptive process.” (Karlsson) The Tenenbaum parents unfortunately couldn't handle that stress, and instead of taking Margot back, ignored her and the stress altogether. In th...

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...eft is Royal who seemed to have received the greatest gift he could have asked for. Royal regained the love from his family that he had once lost, however, only two days after he received it, he dies of a heart attack. Chas being the only one who was with his father at his death contemplated the life that they lived together and realized although they might have wasted twenty two years of it, they had a nice run. The movie portrays how an average American family, through a copious amount of ups and downs can come together, and as the Tenenbaum family meets at the home once more, they see that they are a better family than they ever were before. The whole Tenenbaum clan attends Royals funeral and together find joy in his unfortunate death. Tombstone, “Royal Tenenbaum: Died tragically rescuing his family from the wreckage of a destroyed sinking battleship.” (Huntley)