![]() ![]() It is a shocking and gruesome display of self harm, and the event seems to take all of the instances of depression in the film and give them a moment of catharsis. He goes in the bathroom, cuts off all his hair and then attempts suicide by slitting his wrists. One of the climactic moments of the film is when Richie learns that Margot has been having a number of affairs. A melancholy shade hangs over nearly all their interactions, a kind of limp deadpan delivery that seems like depression. The fallout from their promising youths becomes adult depression in the Tenenbaum children. Chas is anxious and in mourning about his wife's death, Richie suffered a horrible tennis failure and has secluded himself in the middle of the ocean, and Margot does nothing but smoke cigarettes and watch television. DepressionĪll of the children in The Royal Tenenbaums are depressed. In spite of the dark complications swirling around many of the attachments in the film, love is a major theme. Their love is too strong for them to simply ignore it, and they eventually give in to it by the end, with the blessing of the people around them. As hard as they try to fight it, however, the couple shares a pure and genuine attachment to one another. ![]() Margot was adopted, so there is nothing biologically making their romantic attachment incestuous, but their having grown up as siblings makes their connection less acceptable. This love is taboo, because they are legally siblings. More complicatedly, Richie and Margot are in love. In this way, love is a theme in the film, as reflected in the affection shared between Henry and Etheline. In contrast, Henry Sherman, Etheline's suitor and fiancé, is patient and loving towards her, and the affection and care shared between the new lovebirds stands in stark contrast to the deceptive posturing of Royal Tenenbaum. Even if he doesn't feel particularly attached to his ex-wife, he wants to prove that she belongs to him. LoveĮven though he has been separated from his wife for 22 years, Royal becomes incredibly jealous when he hears that Etheline is getting re-married. Royal's failed attempts at being a father are often jokes in the film-indeed, his oversights and failures as a father are at times so obvious as to seem absurd-but they also represent something about the difficulties of fatherhood, the emotional detachment that a father can have from a child, and the difficulties that a father (especially a bad one) has in connecting and finding emotional rapport with his family. ![]() #The bomber royal tenenbaums how to#While he knows how to show his sons and grandsons how to live on the edge and experience life to the fullest (going to dogfights, riding on the back of garbage trucks, indulging in hamburgers almost daily), he doesn't really know how to show up for them emotionally, and he treats Margot, his adopted daughter, almost like a stranger. He is a lovable jerk who doesn't quite know how to be part of his family, and in his dysfunctional approach to love and affection, he stands in for a broader representation of fatherhood. Royal Tenenbaum is the patriarch of the Tenenbaum family, and in many ways, the protagonist of the film. The fact that the Tenenbaums are robbed of a childhood makes them broken adults, and the film depicts their arrested development and inability to deal with failure in tragicomic ways. Thus, a major theme of the film is the shadow that early success casts over the life of a child prodigy. As adults, all three of the Tenenbaums are incredibly neurotic failures, each living passively in the wake of their childhood gifts. However, the film shows that these early childhood gifts do not age well. This makes them very special children, and as the narrator tells us, Etheline valued their education and the cultivation of their talents above all else. The Tenenbaum children are preternaturally gifted in different areas: Richie in athletics, Margot in writing, and Chas in business. This attitude creates a familial dynamic in which they all separate from one another, and never experience any real closeness. Not only does Royal physically separate himself from his family, but he is also very psychically and emotionally separated from them as well. He sits his precocious children around their dining room table and straightforwardly tells them that he has to leave. In leaving his wife, Royal is also leaving his children, separating from them in a rather unceremonious way. Early on in the movie, we see that Royal's careless ways lead to his separation from his wife Etheline, which creates the emotional and circumstantial backdrop for the whole film. The Tenenbaum family does not exist in a whole, stable state for long. ![]()
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