Cap­tain Fantastic

This mild­ly eccen­tric cross-coun­try caper is com­pli­cat­ed by its attempts say some­thing pro­found about life. Writer/​director Matt Ross wants to show that the bat­tle for moral supe­ri­or­i­ty can only be won if every­one is open to deep and detailed crit­i­cism. We are all taint­ed and no one is per­fect, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who believe they are. Vig­go Mortensen plays log cab­in lib­er­al, Ben, a beard­ed Haight-Ahs­bury throw­back with an impres­sive wardrobe of vin­tage Demo­c­rat Par­ty cam­paign tees who is out to prove that exis­tence out­side of the com­mer­cialised main­stream is not only pos­si­ble but preferable.

He impos­es staunch ideals onto his six bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids, forc­ing a bowie knife in to one hand, and a text­book on polit­i­cal sci­ence in to the oth­er. Cap­tain Fan­tas­tic offers a cool cri­tique of the nur­tur­ing process, pre­sent­ing the pros and cons of rais­ing lit­tle ones in our image. It asks whether chil­dren should exist as foot­sol­diers who must abide by parental order. And if so, what if this cul­tur­al force-feed­ing is actu­al­ly teach­ing them about free­dom of expres­sion and the joys of independence?

The family’s wood­land idyll is rup­tured when matri­arch Leslie is pro­nounced dead, and Ben must ush­er his brood into a tat­tered, mod­i­fied school bus so they can hit the road and pre­vent her age­ing con­ser­v­a­tive par­ents from giv­ing her the Chris­t­ian bur­ial she nev­er want­ed. Mortensen’s Ben is like a Man­son Fam­i­ly acolyte, one part peace-lov­ing beat­nik, anoth­er part deranged psy­chopath. He’s not mur­der­ous or any­thing like that, but he’s so self-engaged and ingrained in his opin­ions that it’s his way or the high­way. It’s almost as if he’s fight­ing a one-man war with the non-believ­ers who rep­re­sent the evils of cap­i­tal­ism, reli­gion and intel­lec­tu­al ignorance.

Yet the film itself is far less impres­sive than its con­flict­ed cen­tral char­ac­ter, as in order to make sure that Ben can retain a mea­sure of empa­thy, Ross uses the peo­ple he meets along the road as sin­gle-note fig­ures of fun. A stop-over with his sis­ter-in-law (Kathryn Hahn) allows him to dis­play his children’s emo­tion­al matu­ri­ty. Her sons are slack-jawed, com­put­er game-lov­ing dolts, where­as his pre­teen daugh­ter is able to wax ana­lyt­i­cal about the Amer­i­can Bill of Rights. It’s hard to dis­agree with the idea that book smarts have their val­ue, it’s just a shame it’s pre­sent­ed in such an obvi­ous and con­trived manner.

Else­where, an after-dark sor­tie involves one daugh­ter employ­ing her hunt­ing prowess to clam­ber up onto the roof of grandpa’s mini man­sion to res­cue Ben’s briefly estranged son. We learn that skills per­fect­ed in the for­est don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late to the flat-pack sub­urbs, duh. Yet at this point Ross nudges Ben’s ego­tism over the edge, infer­ring that he’s so intent on pre­serv­ing his ideals that he’s will­ing to place the lives of his chil­dren in mor­tal per­il. A sucky sub­plot also sug­gests that we can’t learn about real human inter­ac­tions through books. It’s a film which tries to say some­thing inter­est­ing, but spends too much time squirm­ing, flip-flop­ping and work­ing out how it can pass com­ment with­out caus­ing too much offence.