100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #52: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Directed by Wes Anderson. Written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach.

Most of the films on this list are “duh” choices for the list of 100 Movies Every Catholic Should See. You’ll find a lot of them on IMDB’s top 250 movies list. It makes sense; they’re good movies. You should watch good movies; therefore, you should watch a lot of films on IMDB’s top 250. I have no issue with recommending The Two Towers as a good film; in fact, it’s a great film—you should watch it. Although, if you’re reading this (you Catholic film appreciator), I’d bet it’d be a rewatch.  

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a movie I’m more uncertain whether you’ve seen. Mr. Fox is a ‘cult classic’ in the way that all of Wes Anderson films are, but it’s not Mr. Anderson’s first, highest-grossing, or even best film—so why am I recommending it? Like some of the greatest literary works of art, Fantastic Mr. Fox promises viewers one thing—in this case, a charming beast fable about a vervey Vulpis Vulpis—and gives its audience so much more.  

Mr. Fox beguiles both children and adults with a charming and cozy atmosphere that summons to the eyes all the most delicious elements of autumn. Because Mr. Fox is stop motion, each set stands like a dollhouse or model train set—and what a set! Each viewer will feel the marvelous wonder of peering into an intricate world both simpler and more magical than this one. Like Tolkien’s world of fairy tale in On Fairy Stories, the world of Mr. Fox is almost more real than ours. The movie’s rich palate ranges around pumpkin spice latte, roast turkey, and pecan pie in its warm lacquered hues and seems to promise all ages a safe and nurturing nook with a fuzzy blanket and reassuring cup of tea. 

The book on which Fantastic Mr. Fox is based also beguiles and rests its readers in a comforting story. In 70 or so pages, Roald Dahl and Donald Chaffin carousel their audience through a delightful tale about a truly fantastic Mr. Fox. He steals from Boggis, Bunce, and Bean and saves the day because he is fantastic. The book is a fun glimpse into a fantastical world where critters dress and act like middle-class professionals in the 1950s—it’s cute, whimsical, and a little bit nostalgic. 

Like Chaucer with The Canterbury Tales or Shakespeare with King Lear, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach took Roald Dahl’s book and augmented a good thing into something great. Anderson and Baumbach expanded the story into a fully-realized adult drama while keeping the storybook’s childlike roots and aesthetic. They created a movie that kids will love and their parents will contemplate.  

Why will children love this movie? As I mentioned before, Mr. Fox is a beautiful movie. Wes Anderson’s “dollhouse” style and design fit perfectly with stop-motion animation and don’t feel at all out of place compared with some of his later films. Like the book, the world of animals and beast-fable is a genre that many children already know. Already familiar with the world of Peter Rabbit, Frog and Toad, and Hazel-rah, most children will immediately gravitate toward the movie’s A-plot. On top of that, the movie is genuinely funny for both kids and adults. Kids will love seeing Mr. Fox attempting to climb an electric fence and watching a rabid dog eat a drugged blueberry (as we all know, beagles love blueberries). The film presents a tight 90-minute story filled with action that will leave kids giggling and reenacting the scenes with each other afterward (at least that’s what my brother and I did when we both saw this film for the first time at ages 12 and 10). 

Most adults will laugh at the slapstick comedy too—it’s (still) hilarious 15 years later. Adults like you (you discerning cinephile) don’t stay for slapstick, however. You’ll stay to watch this movie (if not to keep an eye on your child) for its beautiful extended story about finding your identity as you grow up. Baumbach and Anderson created two essential additions to Dahl’s story: they changed Mr. Fox’s kids to include one son and one maternal nephew staying over for a brief period and they extended the story past the book’s ending. In the book, Mr. Fox has four unnamed kids. In the movie, a secondary plot emerges as tension grows between cousin Kristofferson and son Ash. Ash desperately wants to live up to his “fantastic” Father’s shadow and Kristofferson, while well-adjusted, is hurting from his own parents’ illness. Both characters clash, seeking comfort with Mr. Fox, while Mr. Fox is completely absorbed in his own wish-fulfilment. 

Mr. Fox’s storyline in the film takes this movie from good to great. From the beginning of the film, it feels like Mr. Fox tries to live up to some vision he has of being “fantastic” by doing fantastic things—through daring robberies and intricate cons, he keeps proving how fantastic he is. In a sense, he is fantastic. Mr. Fox’s fantastic run comes to an abrupt closure when he finds out Mrs. Fox is pregnant. They settle down. Mr. Fox becomes a journalist; he writes a weekly column as a thinly veiled cry for help. It’s all very funny to see a fox “selling out,” but is he? I won’t tell you how the movie ends, but Mr. Fox’s journey can be summed up by the famous quote from Gaudium et Spes: “Man…cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.” In this case, a fox cannot find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.  

Mr. Fox feels a very human tension in the film between what he ought to do and what he wants to do. He blames doing what he wants to do on being a “wild animal,” that is, on nature. In a weird way, the beast-fable nature of Fantastic Mr. Fox allows us to look at human nature more clearly and pinpoint exactly why we’re afraid to grow up and live for others. At a key point in the film, Mr. Fox encounters a wild wolf from a distance. In that moment, it’s clear the wolf is wild and Mr. Fox is not the wild animal—he’s the stand-in for us humans who, while not always wild, all have the capacity to be fantastic.