"Captain Fantastic" (2016) Directed by Matt Ross #viggomortensen #family

“You’re only repeating what Dad says”.

Written and directed by Matt Ross, I originally watched Captain Fantastic with a completely blank slate, no trailers, reviews or buzz of the film and fell in love with it immediately and having recently watched this yet again for the purposes of this blog, I fell in love with the film all over again. There are a myriad of reasons why: Ross’ simple yet charmingly immersive direction, a deeply affecting story line with a cathartic payoff, a barnstorming central performance from Viggo Mortensen supported brilliantly by his troupe of “monkey butts” whose individual performances continually brought tears to my eyes in a highly original story of faith, love, the strength of the family unit and of free individualistic expression. This is set against a continuing question of whether the family, and more specifically Mortensen’s central character, is doing what is right or whether it’s through self righteous indignation at a world he and has wife have deliberately left behind in order to raise their children “off the grid” of mainstream society in an Eden like secluded forest, where the six children are rigorously and meticulously home schooled, taught self sufficiency, survival skills, politics, philosophy and physical and mental well being. This is a joint parental decision, however following his wife’s suicide, “Ben” (Viggo Mortensen) and his family embark on a road trip into the very outside world they have been set apart from. The juxtaposition and clash of cultures between the family’s self sufficient world and the world around them is brilliantly written and realised through Director Ross. With the family on board their trusty green bus named “Steve” they travel through an alienating world they cannot comprehend en-route to their beloved’s funeral.

The brief opening paragraph above is taken from my spoiler free review of "Captain Fantastic" I originally penned and published in April 2017 before transferring to my Medium blog site on 19th November 2021 and which can be read in full and for free (please also consider subscribing for free too!) via my Substack blog site and the article itself linked immediately below:

https://ramblingmusings666.substack.com/p/captain-fantastic-925fffb86852

This spoiler free review is also featured within the first volume of my 7 volume series of "essential film reviews collection" (£4.99 per volume) or each and every volume can be read for free should you have an Amazon Kindle "Unlimited" package:

Volume 1:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C4HHDL56

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C4HZSTTH?ref_=dbs_p_pwh_rwt_anx_b_lnk&storeType=ebooks

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