As luck would have it, the opening gala of the London Film Festival usually coincides with my birthday, and this year was no exception. My wife and I put on our best evening clothes and set off on what promised to be a great night out: a movie premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square followed by a party at the Saatchi Gallery.
This year, the film was Fantastic Mr Fox, Wes Anderson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s story. This is a firm favourite in our household, mainly because it is so gloriously ‘off message’ compared to 99 per cent of contemporary children’s literature. Instead of the usual homilies about inclusion and tolerance, it is a celebration of criminality. Mr Fox is a gentleman thief in the tradition of Raffles who constantly outsmarts the three local farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
The film starts off promisingly. The stop-motion animation style is charmingly antiquated, more like Trumpton than Wallace and Gromit, and the Fox family has been created using real fur. The voices are good, too, with George Clooney and Meryl Streep playing Mr and Mrs Fox. The first sign that Wes Anderson has departed from the original is that the animals are much more anthropomorphised. They live in modern homes with running water and electricity, wear clothes and hold down proper jobs. Not necessarily a bad thing, except that in the process they’ve been Americanised. The Fox family all have American accents and they shop at the Five and Dime. To all intents and purposes, the film is set in rural Connecticut, except that Boggis, Bunce and Bean all have British accents. No explanation is offered as to why the three farmers happen to be British. Presumably, Anderson didn’t think one was necessary.
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