#Captain fantastic movie#

I think one of the many themes the film explores is that, how, in part, he has failed his wife and his children in not trying to find a balance between teaching them to be self-reliant and knowing how the world actually works.

#Captain fantastic movie#

It's certainly a very interesting (which is a banned word in this family) approach to tell this story, even if it's not gonna re-invent the wheel, but I like the fact that the movie isn't afraid to take chances with its characters. The film also explores how one of Ben's sons just strives to have some sense of normalcy and how he lashes out in anger when he's frustrated. He even says that, if it doesn't come from a book, he knows nothing about life. His oldest son, as an example, struggles to connect with this girl he meets. Another aspect is the fact that, in spite of what Ben teaches, he just hasn't prepared them for how the real world works. Regardless of how smart and self-reliant Ben's children are, there's also some sense that he's really not even letting them be children. There are several scenes where you get to see how his teachings and how his approach to parenting leads to one of his daughters finding herself in an incredibly dangerous situation, where she could have been paralyzed or even died.

While the way Ben raises his children makes them stronger, more self-reliant, allows for critical thinking without any fear of judgement and, quite frankly, more intelligent than most adults, it also raises questions in whether or not his methods are putting his children in danger. The movie is very interesting in how it explores a variety of different subjects of this family dynamic. The film is about Ben's journey with his children to go to her funeral, despite being prohibited by Leslie's father from attending. Anyway, Leslie kills herself and this is where the film really starts. Ben's father-in-law pays for her stay in the hospital. It didn't and Leslie is interned in this psychiatric facility in order to get the help she needs. Leslie, however, has been struggling with depression and Ben thought moving her and the children away from the hectic city life to a more secluded, nature-friendly place would help Leslie with her depression. Long story short, the film sees Ben and Leslie move their children away from civilization, where they're taught survivalist skills, philosophy and to be self-dependent. Not saying that they were misleading, but just that they didn't give you the sense of what the film is actually about. I watched the trailers and I honestly didn't really even know what to expect.

Thankfully, however, this ended up being a really damn good movie in ways that I didn't really expect. There's always a chance that a movie you think you might enjoy would end up falling short of those expectations, but I digress. I mean, I didn't really know that this would be good. It's been about 9 days since I reviewed a movie that I thought was good (that'd be Catfight) and I just wanted to watch something that I knew would be good. Seriously though, I've been on a pretty rotten run of movies lately (one of which was one of the worst movies I've seen in months). I also love Frank Langella and Kathryn Hahn (though they're supporting characters). There's one reason, and one reason only, for why I wanted to watch this movie.