MindsBase

What? Please. Don’t tell me you don’t know who Roald Dahl is. Collective sigh from the rest of us. Yes. No, it’s okay. We’ll clue you in. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? James and the Giant Peach? The Witches? Yes, they were actually books before they were movies. Books written by a man who Americans seem determined to call Ronald.

Well, when you get your handy-dandy boxed set of Roald Dahl’s best-known books, you may notice a slim little dandy in the bunch called Fantastic Mr. Fox. Read it. Read it to your kids (or if you are a kid, read it to a younger kid.) It’s a quick night-time read. You can even spread it out over a couple days if you’re truly lazy (like me.)

Please, do it before you see the new(ish) film, and you’ll see why each is a genius compliment to the other. You’ll see that Wes Anderson and  Noah Baumbach (film writers) totally GOT the essence of the literary goodness that is Roald Dahl and one of his most whimsical stories. Dahl wrote about crazy, wild things, yes. But that is not why people love his books. You wanna know why people love his books? They’re about real, human characters. Human emotions anyway — even if the characters are animals. Take, for instance, the nuances in this passage from Dahl’s Mr. Fox:

Suddenly Badger said, “Doesn’t this worry you just a tiny bit, Foxy?”

“Worry me?” said Mr. Fox. “What?”

“All this . . . this stealing?”

Mr. Fox stopped digging and stared at Badger as though he had gone completely dotty. “My dear old furry frump,” he said, “do you know anyone in the whole world who wouldn’t swipe a few chickens if his children were starving to death?”

There was a short silence while Badger thought deeply about this.

“You’re far too respectable,” said Mr. Fox.

“There’s nothing wrong with being respectable,” Badger said.

“Look,” said Mr. Fox, “Boggis and Bunce and Bean are out to kill us. You realize that, I hope?”

“I do, Foxy, I do indeed,” said the gentle Badger.

“But we’re not going to stoop to their level. We don’t want to kill them.”

“I should hope not, indeed,” said Badger.

Granted, Mr. Fox is not a person; he’s a fox, but boy is he a foxy one. His rhetoric is cunning! He ennobles his trickery by placing it firmly beside feeding the hungry and in stern opposition to murder! How familiar this seems. We humans are always refining our self-story to make ourselves out to be better than we are. Especially for our shadiest deeds.

But Fantastic Mr. Fox, little book that it is, ends with Mr. Fox triumphant in his shady dealings. That would have limited any movie on the subject. Fortunately, this script and its execution landed in the laps of people who understood Dahl’s style well enough to carry the story onward to a much more satisfying emotional end. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I will say that Foxy learns more than just to give lip service to a starving family. He learns about actual nobility, not just how to talk of it.

As such, this film ranks right up there (aaaalmost) with The Incredibles as a beautiful look at a family in crisis and how they pull together instead of shattering apart.

It’s out on video now, so better get reading — and then get viewing! I give the film four and a half nods.*

I feel I should mention, however, that Dahl’s whimsy paired with Anderson’s kooky may not strike everyone’s funny bone, but it did me and mine! Are you cussin’ me?

* Note that I give Roald Dahl and every word he ever wrote a vigorous five nods! Now go read his double autobiography: Boy and Going Solo. They’re sold together in one book now I believe. His life was even more enchanting than his stories!