Captain Fantastic Tires To Be An Inspirational Tale About A Neglectful Selfish Father. It Doesn't Work.

Last year's Sundance Film Festival delivered some unique motion pictures that have stuck around in my mind a year after that festival concluded. There was the comedic classic Hunt For The Wilderpeople, the zany yet thoughtful Swiss Army Man, and of course, Kenneth Lonergan's beautiful meditation on grief Manchester By The Sea. But every film festival has its duds, it's just the law of averages when you're screening a large number of movies. The Hollars was one big star-studded misfire and Captain Fantastic serves as another example of indie feature that debuted at last year's Sundance Film Festival that just doesn't work.

Captain Fantastic is the kind of movie that would be better served by a less realistic visual presentation or maybe dialing back on the darker aspects of its story. Because, as told here, this is less of a film that serves as an ode to the outcasts or misfits and more of a go-to defense for deadbeat fathers everywhere. The not-so-good dad here is Ben (Viggo Mortensen), a guy who's been raising his six kids with his wife out in the wilderness, where the whole family is raised on survivalist skills and intellectual literature. They live a secluded life that has them killing deer and decrying modern society in equal measure.

Then Ben's wife does, a tragic event that's made all the more unpleasant because his wife's father, Jack (Frank Langella, who deserves better than this), despises Ben and doesn't want him to come anywhere near the funeral procession. After his kids express a desire to go see their mom one last time and send her off properly (their mom expressed a desire to be cremated in her will), they set off on a road trip to the funeral. Any entertaining misadventures or potential for character growth along their journey never happens. Instead, Ben gets to show off his interchangeable youngsters to everyone else to rub it in their faces how much better his style of "quirky" parenting is that ensures the children never interact with the real world.

Here's the thing about this whole movie, it basically collapses under the fact that it wants to make a treacle-covered movie about families sticking together despite the lead character's obvious selfishness and dangerous attitude towards parenting. Ben is like a dream come true for those who whine about modern-day overprotective parenting, constantly endangering his children and berating his eldest son for going through all the paperwork necessary to go to college. Why am I supposed to like this guy? He'd totally be a bad guy in, like, an episode of Hannibal or something, this over-controlling weirdo who lives out in the woods, teaches his offspring to steal from a grocery store and tries to mold his children in his own image instead of letting them organically grow as their own human beings.

And yet, does this movie realize that? Not at all! There's a third act plot point where Jack is taking custody of the children where it looks like the film might be trying to actually examine the more flawed nature of its protagonist, but that doesn't last long. Even after Ben's foolhardy attempt to kidnap his son back from Jack results in one of his daughters getting a concussion, we get that requisite scene of the kids not wanting to leave their daddy and them talking about how they gotta stick together and all that crap. The whole movies an extended exercise in just showing off how awesome this bad father (and husband while we're at it) is, which comes at the expense of giving any of the six children he has any personality.

All of the kids in this movie don't get any real sense of actually being people, they're just one-note creations designed to do whatever the plot requires them to. A conversation between Ben and his oldest son about the prospect of going to College has no repercussions between the two characters over the rest of the film, the oldest son just goes along for the ride and exhibits no resentment toward his dad afterwards. Captain Fantastic is a tonal disaster with only some decent costumes and camera work to keep it above being an outright calamity, one that wants to spin a yarn that'll make your heart soar but really just makes one want to call Child Protective Services right away.