If it sounds bittersweet, it is, but like the best family albums, Tenenbaums is split wide with open-heartedness, and equally generous with its triumphs and failures.

| Mar 16, 2020

This comedy-drama about a dysfunctional family of eccentric geniuses is exactly the kind of movie America could use. It's funny, poignant, laced with irresistibly flawed characters and focuses on the power of love in a family.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 1, 2014

The film manages to be both sarcastic and sentimental. As odd as the Tenenbaums are, the family remains bound by love.

| Oct 1, 2014

The Tenenbaums's self-referential outlook, wayward agendas, wanton destructiveness and wishful fantasy make for a highly entertaining spectacle, provided you acknowledge you're watching a churning status quo that will never alter in essentials.

| Oct 1, 2014

With Anderson's images, seductive as they are, we can ultimately only guess -- what Margot's plays are about, or who Etheline's suitors are... And that makes Anderson's film an exhilarating experience, a real jungle gym for the imagination.

| Mar 4, 2014

Each character, as ever, is tucked into a shell of his or her obsessions, and yet the filming itself -- the grace of Anderson's draftsmanship, as it were -- binds the figures together into a team.

| Mar 4, 2014

Anderson, who collaborated on the script (as in his previous films) with his college buddy Owen Wilson, gives everyone some of the best dialogue heard in a recent movie.

| Mar 4, 2014

Wes Anderson is an authentic original -- an eccentric and heretical talent.

| Mar 4, 2014

While the situations sometimes feel forced, Anderson has mounted an elegant production, beautifully filmed and accentuated by pleasant narration from Alec Baldwin and classy storybook transitions.

| Mar 4, 2014

Tenenbaums doesn't quite jell, but it's a beautiful near miss.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 4, 2014

If [Anderson] and Wilson love their actors, characters, and ideas too much to reign themselves in, they at least overreach in the service of one of the year's warmest, funniest films.

| Mar 4, 2014

The very precise look of the film, the clever design and camerawork, which create a slightly off-kilter world for the characters to inhabit, is beautifully done.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 4, 2014

Quirky extended-family story with dry adult humor.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 29, 2010

As with Anderson's Rushmore, there's a certain annoying preciousness to this film -- it's not so consistently wise or amusing as he thinks it is -- but it has its moments.

| Aug 14, 2008

As richly conceived as the novel it pretends to be...

Full Review | Jul 22, 2008

Whatever my qualms, it's still one of the funniest comedies around.

| May 27, 2008

A comedy of unrequited love, melancholy and disappointment. One to savour.

| Jun 24, 2006

One of the cleverest comedies to happen along in ages.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2003

Narrated by Alec Baldwin in a way that makes you think that Anderson must have seen Amelie, The Royal Tenenbaums is, if not a hilarious art-house comedy, certainly a very amusing one that is well outside the limits of the usual, formulaic studio comedy.

| Aug 2, 2002

Apart from Hackman, the actors look more trapped by Anderson's rigid framing, color scheme, and enforced deadpan.

| Mar 22, 2002