10 Things Wes Anderson Puts In EVERY Movie
4. Complex Characters And Endearingly Unorthodox Families
Best Example: A Male Protagonist Plagued By Traumatic Memories
People say Wes Anderson is style over substance but in fact, his movies would not have the same great success if it weren’t for how deeply character driven his stories were. After all, his unique visuals and quirky film ensembles go hand in hand to complete the famous Wes genre.
A lot of Anderson’s childhood influenced how his films would become and since he’s a co-writer for all his projects, you begin to realise the parallels of Wes’ movies to his own early life. Anderson is a child of divorce which meant he and his two brothers were raised by a single mother without a father figure in their life. This reflects in how many of his stories involves parental issues. Notice how a lot of his characters have a deceased mum or dad as well as the recurring pattern of a maternal figure (usually portrayed by Angelica Houston) playing an essential part within his films.
Notice also in the world of Wes Anderson, there is also the odd case of children acting like adults whilst the real adults never discipline them and actually treat with authority. Moonrise Kingdom is a key example of this since Sam and Suzy, though only young, embody a seemingly matured couple with very adult-like problems and dialogue.
The exchanges between characters are usually very matter of fact, sometimes with no emotion, where a very comical line can be expressed in a serious way and vice versa. Crazy scenarios are displayed with normalness too because of the comical dryness of the script.
And above all, Wes Anderson movies typically have a leading male character (although not without some excellent female heroines either) who come with a rich backstory and have struggled with arrested development. Take Max Fischer - a 15 year old with a deceased mother and shame of his father's occupation of being a barber.
He falls in love with a recently widowed teacher and befriends an older, wealthy industrialist named Herman Blume who is also in love with the teacher. Things start to spiral out of control for Max and it all becomes a question of how he can resovle his complicated woes and accept the life he's going to lead.