Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, George Mackay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Trin Miller, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Erin Moriarty, Missi Pyle, Frank Langella, Ann Dowd, Rex Young, Galen Osier, Thomas Brophy, Mike Miller, Louis Hobson, Hannah Horton.
It is on the face of it a seemingly small moment in cinema but Matt Ross’ intelligent and superbly argued script for Captain Fantastic captures the point of individualism and socialism in a world that only wants you to be a drone, a consumer, a person to whom history means nothing and whose appetite for the material and the edible is verging on obese and dangerously unhealthy. It is with a touch of grace that Captain Fantastic turns that rotten ideology on its head and offers a different view on how to live.
To offer anything other than a systemic platitude, the agreement of being consumed is almost anti-American thought and it is one that captivates and enthrals the audience. It is to the impressive Viggo Mortensen that much of this energy falls and to whom he obviously relishes being able to showcase the younger talent in the film, in which George MacKay as his son Bo and Samantha Isler are names to take hold of in the future.
Battling against the system is its own reward, it makes you tough and resilient, not complying to the inevitable is to show someone else that the world is arguably more off kilter than your own high standards and because of that the film rises in stature, in its own dignity and is filled to the brim with passion.
Captain Fantastic is a powerful reminder that living off the grid is not something to be seen as crazy, that in many ways it is the most liberating thing anybody can truly do, to be complete with nature, to not give in to the temptation of the manicured golf course and the poisons and toxins that inhabit our daily living is the most pure way of dealing with life.
What makes the film stand out is the argument that sneaks into the brain, you cannot help but admire the family’s determination to live in isolation, even when the tragedy hits, when they are barred from following out the very wishes we all would hope to be followed through with in that very moment of death, the dignity and the anger is righteous and demands attention from the cinema goer.
A terrific film which only asks one obscure question, why is Viggo Mortensen so ignored by the multitude when clearly he is, and always has been a talented actor?
Ian D. Hall