#noam: dialogue ask game

[nothingneverforever]

Captain Fantastic (2016)

Okay I avoided watching this for the longest time because I knew I’d hate it but also I just couldn’t find it in me to give a damn about an off-the-grid bearded man and his unsocialized children but then a friend asked me to watch it so okay fineeee challenge accepted or something I suppose

The first point I want to make about the film is also my main and most likely my only point: MALES. Literally – Captain Fantastic is only ever about males and nothing more. Middle-aged dad, elder granddad, adolescent boy, late-teens / young adult boy, fuck, we hear more about Noam Chomsky than we do about ANY female character. Males males MALES MALES MALES and that’s about it tbh

Hang on, sorry, the film is meant to be about the mom right? She’s the actual plot mover right? It’s meant to tell the story of how Viggo Mortensen’s wife dies, leaving things in disarray, it’s meant to be about her funeral and burial and subsequent excavation and cremation right? Funny that, cos the only time we EVER see her is in the few highly romanticized flashback scenes here and there, shown purely from her husband’s pov… hmm okay nvm

Oh wait, shit, the guy has three daughters too? Oh okay, hmm lets see, younger sister can climb roofs and stuff and older sister uhh says maybe 5 words during the whole film and youngest baby sis is obsessed with knives and likes to shank things I guess ? Ohh yea I just remembered - middle sis ROLLS AND TUMBLES AND FALLS OFF A FUCKING HOME ROOF and smashes down hard on the pavement driveway and just about nearly fuckin dies, but does it do anything for HER character arc? Does it add a single millimeter of depth to her personhood? Haha of course not!!!!!! Of course it’s a plot point that serves only to induce pathetically ego-centric reflection within her dumbass dad!!

Meanwhile, older son gets intimate shots and elaborate scenes where he confronts his burgeoning sexual desires and gets to scream at his dad to tell him that he does in fact want to go to college even if his dad thinks it’s a crap idea and we get to see him moved by the experience of his first kiss, get to se him passionate about his dreams for this life. Younger son too gets his screen time and we see how he wants to be free to yell at video games and eat sugared cereal and do everything a dumb little kid should have the privilege to do, and we see this conflict grow in him until it explodes and we are right there with him through it all. Each son gets their various “raw” conversations with their father, and in turn their grandfather gets involved BECAUSE HEY GUYS DID YALL KNOW, THIS ENTIRE FILM IS ABOUT MEN AND BOYS?!?!?!!?!???

Oh yea there’s a grandma character but it’s like she was literally created by screenwriters who sat together and said yo let’s throw out every single grandma stereotype we can think of, 3, 2, 1, okay go – gives good hugs, cries, loves her daughter, knows her husband is pigheaded but doesn’t really have the power to do anything differently, wants nothing more in this world than to be with her grandchildren cos she has absolutely zero fucking life or character or identity of her own… k done! Grandma character sorted, best movie ever.

By the way, I’m not saying any of these things because I feel compelled to or because I think society should have moved beyond giving so much of a fuck about a story written by men for men about men. These two points are accurate, but I’m saying these things because I genuinely could not find anything in this dumb film to emote or relate to, because I genuinely felt annoyed each time we heard about something from a male character’s perspective yet again, and because I could tell that it had no awareness that it was doing any of this at all –  “wait, you mean our female characters got close to zero screen time and zero dialogue and zero character growth or exploration? Huh, I literally hadn’t noticed.”

I suppose to most people, this is a normal story. In fact, it’s not a normal story – it’s a cool one. It’s an epic one, it’s a unique one, it’s an inspiring one.  It’s normal that we see a dead wife through her dumb husband’s eyes; it’s normal that daughters are stoic and predictable and unwavering in their loyalty; it’s normal that the male characters in the form of sons and fathers and grandfathers in families are given the most challenging conflicts they have to overcome and hey we’re all supposed to relate ok!!!! It’s the story of the human experience!!!

Oh lol also, the dad character uses the word “whore” and teaches his pre-teen children to parrot it as a metaphor and yea that scene was like at the 5 min mark or something so pardon me for not being able to give him one fucking second of respect or sympathy after

Anyway, I enjoyed this whole process, in case you thought the opposite. Watching the film and smashing this er, “review”, out in like the grand total of 5 minutes it has taken me helped bring me back to some parts of my 2016/2017 self that I’ve left dormant for a long time. Reminded me of all the things I am, and why. Overly-emotional hater and proud :’)