The Royal Tenenbaums (Rental) (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	105:13
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (52:20)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Wes Anderson
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Gene Hackman Anjelica Huston Ben Stiller Gwyneth Paltrow Luke Wilson Owen Wilson Bill Murray Danny Glover Kumar Pallana
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	Rental	Music	Mark Mothersbaugh

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired French Dutch Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish French Titling	Smoking	Yes, extensive
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is a strange movie. It appears, superficially, to be a fairly simple story of a dysfunctional family, told very straight. It's not. It's actually rather funny, in a wry and at times vicious way. Not all of the humour comes off, but there's enough that it is well worth watching. and you are likely to need to watch it again if you want to catch all of the subtleties.

    It helps that this film has been cast with an array of rather good actors (well, I don't have a high opinion of Ben Stiller, but this role doesn't stretch his limited abilities). Gene Hackman clearly relishes the role of Royal Tenebaum, the father of the family, once a rich and powerful lawyer, now destitute. Anjelica Huston looks older, a little sadder, but still impressive as Etheline Tenebaum (I kept thinking that should be spelled "ethylene"), the mother of the family, who raised the children after throwing their father out of the house. The children, Chas (Ben Stiller), Richie (Luke Wilson), and Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow, in an interesting performance) are all former geniuses who have lost their way. There are good supporting performances from Danny Glover, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Kumar Pallana (playing an Indian servant called Pagoda!?).

    The start and end of the story are narrated for us by Alec Baldwin. He relates the early successes of each child in a dry, matter-of-fact voice — you have to listen closely to these sequences, as they are quite funny. Then we discover that we've jumped forward 22 years, and we're introduced to their less-successful older selves.

    I don't want to say any more about the plot — better you let it unfold in front of you. Just allow me to warn you that this is not a riotous slapstick comedy; it is more subtle than that. Don't expect to be rolling on the floor laughing.

Video

    The film is virtually brand-new, and this transfer looks like it.

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio.

    The picture is quite sharp and clear. Shadow detail is excellent. There's no significant grain. There's no low level noise.

    Colour is quite good, although there are some slight differences in colour between inside and outside shots — while this can be attributed to different qualities of the light, other films manage to avoid these discrepancies. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    I didn't notice any film artefacts, and that's to be hoped for in a transfer this recent.

    There weren't many film-to-video artefacts, with most being very slight aliasing (barely visible) in a couple of scenes.

    There are subtitles in seven languages, including English in the form of normal subtitles and Hearing Impaired subtitles. I only watched the English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles. They are presented in an attractive font, are easy to read, and are rather accurate, but they frequently shimmer — this shimmer was by far the worst artefact on the entire transfer.

    The disc is single sided, and RSDL-formatted; the layer change is at 52:20, at a natural pause in a scene that gets drawn out by the layer change. A bit noticeable, but not disruptive to the flow of the movie.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two soundtracks; English and French. The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1, although I'm completely mystified as to why — it makes no real use of anything other than the front three speakers.

    The dialogue is quite clear and comprehensible. There are no obvious audio sync glitches.

    The score is by Mark Mothersbaugh (who played three instruments, too); it is quirky, but not obtrusive. There are a lot of songs in the soundtrack as well — it opens with Hey Jude, and uses Dylan, The Rolling Stones and The Clash, as well as a number of artists I've not heard of.

    Neither surrounds nor subwoofer get anything noticeable to do with this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras at all on this rental disc.

Menu

    All the menus are subtly animated (mice!), with music. The main menu offers only Scene Selection (12 scenes), Setup (audio and subtitles), and Play.

    The R1 version of this film comes from the Criterion Collection. It is a two disc Special Edition (it's in one of those old-fashioned fat two-disc cases, with a cardboard slip cover). And I'm pitting it against an extra-free rental disc? This ain't gonna be pretty!

    The R4 is missing:

• dts 5.1 soundtrack in English
• Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack in English
• Director's commentary
• two booklets (12 page booklet about the house, 14 page general booklet)
• intro to the Criterion edition by Ben Stiller
• scrapbook — collection of odds and ends:
•  outtake of birthday cake
•  Miguel Calderon art - stills and radio broadcast
•  still gallery of paintings by Eric Chase Anderson, used as Richie's portraits of Margot
•  over 200 behind-the-scenes still photos
•  stills of Wes Anderson's script, copiously annotated with storyboards and notes
•  stills of murals in Richie's room
•  stills of book covers (books written by various characters)
•  plate-spinning performance by Kumar Pallana
• The Peter Bradley Show about Wes Anderson films (14:20)
• two trailers (4:23 total)
• With the Filmmaker featurette (27:02)
• cut scenes (1:47)
• eight interviews (26:53 total)

    The R1 is missing:

• nothing

    Let's hope that the retail version has a few extras....

    An unusual, wry, comedy/drama on a nice clean DVD (so clean it has no extras).

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is good for the film, but one wonders about the choice of 5.1 sound.

    There are no extras on this disc.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall