The Royal Tenenbaums

Friday, April 12 - Sunday, April 14, 2019

“THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS is a film of rare beauty, alive with humanity and crippling sadness. It earns its joy because Anderson can make an otherwise ancient cliché crackle as if it were new. Take Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), who is tactless but whose love for his family is absolute; he’s the distant father who’ll conspire for your love but earns it with a simple kiss on the cheek: “Thank you my sweet boy.” At its simplest, Anderson’s latest masterpiece becomes a paean to second chances.

Anderson carefully sets up the Tenenbaums as martyrs to their self-contained upper-class milieu. Etheline (Anjelica Huston) is Royal’s ex-wife, now set to marry an academic widower, Henry Sherman (Danny Glover), whose love she was blind to for over a decade. Adopted daughter Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the literary genius whose career success comes at the price of her emotional isolation. Chas (Ben Stiller) strips the father-son dynamic of ecstasy once his wife’s death gives way to his paranoiac mentality. Richie (Luke Wilson) is the fallen tennis idol that equates failure with his father’s absence and his muted love for Margot. As children they bid farewell to Royal by way of a conference call, a humorous scenario through which Anderson emphasizes the notion of youth having to reconcile adult pain within a less-than-warm environ.

…Anderson’s obsession with failure becomes so tightly bound with hope that death itself becomes a vehicle to joy, a humbling happily ever after.” – Slant (2001)

Screening as part of our Spring 2019 season of “Weekend Classics: Love, Mom and Dad.”


  • Country USA
  • Rating R
  • Year 2001
  • Running Time 110 minutes
  • Distributor Disney
  • Director Wes Anderson
  • Writer Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson
  • Editor Dylan Tichenor
  • Cinematographer Robert Yeoman
  • Cast Bill Murray, Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Kumar Pallana, Alec Baldwin (narrator)

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.