Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox at 15: a cel­e­bra­tion of change and difference

As the evenings get dark­er ear­li­er, and the leaves turn from red to orange, I can’t help but find myself return­ing to Wes Anderson’s Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox – which most def­i­nite­ly takes the title of the most autum­nal film of all time. The film’s aes­thet­ic pays homage to Quentin Blake’s icon­ic illus­tra­tions that famous­ly brought Roald Dahl’s book to life, it is full of rich colour and the simul­ta­ne­ous­ly unnerv­ing and charm­ing stop-motion ani­ma­tion feels like the ide­al way to cap­ture the quirk­i­ness and char­ac­ter of his writ­ing. Ander­son knew that in mak­ing this fea­ture ani­mat­ed he would lose a per­cent­age of audi­ence inter­est instant­ly, yet the film has per­se­vered and remained a firm favourite for thou­sands. I cred­it this to how fun­ny, relat­able and emo­tion­al­ly engag­ing the sto­ry is in its por­tray­al of an iden­ti­ty cri­sis from the per­spec­tive of a fox. The sto­ry explores themes of accep­tance and encour­ages cel­e­brat­ing dif­fer­ence – a sen­ti­ment that is more top­i­cal than ever in the cur­rent cul­tur­al climate.

The stop-motion mas­ter­piece cen­tres on Mr. Fox (George Clooney), who finds his wild ani­mal instincts clash­ing with the respon­si­bil­i­ties he has both as hus­band to artist Felic­i­ty (Meryl Streep) and as father to angsty Ash (Jason Schwartz­man). When he decides he doesn’t ​“want to live in a hole any­more” and moves his fam­i­ly to a cosy house in a tree, he finds it is per­fect­ly posi­tioned oppo­site the loom­ing indus­tri­al farms of Bog­gis, Bunce and Bean. The deli­cious pos­si­bil­i­ties of their pres­ence become an obses­sion for Foxy, who decides on one last hur­rah to steal from each of the farms, and chase the highs of his youth. His actions end up enrag­ing the farm­ers, who form a plan to fight back, putting the oth­er ani­mals in the com­mu­ni­ty in danger.

Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox was the first Wes Ander­son film I ever had the plea­sure of watch­ing, and what cap­tured my atten­tion was how unique, engag­ing and dif­fer­ent his style of film­mak­ing is. It seems poignant, then, that the cel­e­bra­tion of dif­fer­ence is one that Ander­son explores emphat­i­cal­ly in this sto­ry. Ash, my favourite char­ac­ter with his small stature, dis­tinct all-white ensem­ble (cape includ­ed), inse­cure out­bursts and insis­tence that he’s an ​“ath­lete”, stands as a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of dif­fer­ence. Char­ac­ters repeat­ed­ly dis­miss him as such, even his father who does not under­stand his son, but he has an unwa­ver­ing sense of self-belief. His strong-willed nature in the face of per­sis­tent judge­ment means that when he final­ly has his hero moment, his real­i­sa­tion that being ​“lit­tle” is not a bad thing is all the more sweet. Foxy’s line is inspired ​“I think it may very well be all the beau­ti­ful dif­fer­ences among us that just might give us the tini­est glim­mer of a chance” is my favourite sen­ti­ment in the film. The idea that every­one has quirks and dis­tinc­tions, and the accep­tance and appre­ci­a­tion of those traits are what builds a com­mu­ni­ty. It’s a par­tic­u­lar­ly beau­ti­ful mes­sage to include in a children’s film and one that remains impor­tant as we move through life.

It seems strange for a children’s film to cen­tre on the mid-life cri­sis of its lead. Yet Ander­son effort­less­ly tran­scends gen­er­a­tional bound­aries by cre­at­ing a lay­ered film with a sim­ple ​‘David and Goliath’ sto­ry at its sur­face about an under­dog (or under-fox in this case) stick­ing it to three nasty farm­ers that simul­ta­ne­ous­ly nav­i­gates the pret­ty adult sen­sa­tion of feel­ing dis­sat­is­fied with the hand you are giv­en and want­i­ng more from life. His world is full of jux­ta­po­si­tions – he jus­ti­fies his thiev­ing behav­iour with the state­ment ​“I’m a wild ani­mal”, an iron­ic state­ment giv­en the very domes­ti­cat­ed life he leads, work­ing a white col­lar job, wear­ing a tai­lored suit and mov­ing his fam­i­ly above ground like a human to not ​“feel poor”.

“Who am I, and how can a fox ever be hap­py without…a chick­en in its teeth?” Fox says ear­ly on; a notion that shapes the entire­ty of the film. His dreams con­flict with his wife who is focused on keep­ing their fam­i­ly safe, and prefers to exer­cise her self-expres­sion through paint­ing light­ning bolts in her art­work. Mr. Fox’s unrest is the major cause of con­flict in the sto­ry, as he is itch­ing for more from life, chas­ing the idea of being ​“the quote-unquote Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox” – a beatif­ic ver­sion of him­self intent on per­pet­u­al­ly impress­ing peo­ple with his thrill-chas­ing and per­fect­ly exe­cut­ed heists. The inclu­sion of the lone­ly psy­chot­ic rat (voiced by Willem Dafoe) who guards Mr. Bean’s cider cel­lar is almost a warn­ing to Foxy of what he could become if he con­tin­ues this path of pure reck­less desire. Mr. Fox only tru­ly under­stands what he wants when what he has gets put in jeop­ardy. The ​‘Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox’ he becomes accepts fail­ure and tries again any­way, shift­ing his focus from his own glo­ry and chan­nelling that ener­gy for great­ness into lead­ing his friends and fam­i­ly to survival.

Foxy’s final stage of accep­tance comes when he meets a wolf, a sym­bol of untame­able wild­ness and the only thing he tru­ly fears. When he sees one in the wild, stand­ing on all fours and wear­ing no human clothes, Mr. Fox sheds a tear and they raise a paw to one anoth­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty. In this moment, he realis­es that though he is an ani­mal, he is not as wild as he tru­ly thought. This chance encounter gives him per­spec­tive and allows him to make peace with his exis­tence, learn­ing to bal­ance his innate ani­mal behav­iour and his domes­tic life.

Wes Ander­son is such a spe­cial film­mak­er, with his dis­tinct stylised sym­met­ri­cal visu­al mas­ter­pieces and his abil­i­ty to not let style over­take sub­stance. 15 years lat­er the emo­tive themes of iden­ti­ty, the accep­tance of change and the idea that ​“there’s some­thing kind of fan­tas­tic” about being dif­fer­ent are still just as mov­ing. The mes­sage to take away is com­fort­ing; as you learn more about your exis­tence, as you grow old­er and per­haps become a par­ent, your per­spec­tive changes. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing; it just means that the adven­tures you’re going to have might be a bit dif­fer­ent to the ones you imag­ined. The Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox he thought he would be isn’t the Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox he became – but that does not make him any less brilliant.