The Royal Tenenbaums Literary Elements

Wes Anderson

Gene Hackman, Luke Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow

Angelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Danny Glover, Bill Murray

Comedy, Drama, Indie

English

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay

October 5, 2001

Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Barry Mendel

A fictionalized New York in the early aughts

There is a narrator who is reading the book version of the story, though he is never identified. He is omniscient.

The tone is often dry, deadpan, comic, and absurd, but it can also be very melancholic, tragic, and dark.

Protagonist: Royal Tenenbaum, Antagonist: There is not one central villain, though Eli ends up being the antagonist at the end

The major conflict is that Royal wants to ingratiate himself back into his family by lying that he is terminally ill, but they won't accept him back. Another conflict is that Richie is in love with his adoptive sister, but this is taboo, and she has been having an affair with his friend Eli Cash.

The climax occurs when Eli Cash drives his car into the Tenenbaums' apartment while high on drugs.

The fact that Royal is lying is foreshadowed by his indulging in drinks and cigarettes even though he is allegedly terminally ill. The funeral at the end is foreshadowed by the Tenenbaums' visits to the cemetery throughout the film.

There is a lot of understatement in the film. In moments of crisis, people do not usually respond as dramatically as one might expect, or their intense emotions come out in smaller, stranger ways.

The film alludes to J.D. Salinger's book "Franny and Zooey" as well as several films, as well as the museum plot of E.L. Konigsburg's book, "From the Mixed-up Files of Miss Basil E. Frankweiler."

When Margot first gets off the bus to fetch Richie, a song by Nico plays. At the end, when they smoke on the roof together, Nico plays again.