George Clooney’s charm is undeniable. I went against my organic, fair trade and recycling principles to buy a darn Nespresso machine because he is the ‘Nespresso guy’. There is just no resisting him as Mr. Fox, a chicken thief gone ‘straight’ in this stop-motion animation film.

In a nutshell

Fox gets the wife pregnant. He promises to give up his thieving ways and find a safe job. 12 Fox years later he can’t resist and steals from the most dangerous farmers in the area. He is found out and hell hath no fury like a farmer stolen from, especially these three brutes.

The OCD of Wes Anderson

At first Fantastic Mr. Fox made no sense to me. I found it brilliant but a little strange and as a rule I adore strange and brilliant films.

Things became a lot clearer when I read that director Wes Anderson was also responsible for the brilliant but strange The Royal Tenenbaums and the strange The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Fox is a typical Anderson film and Wes is obviously a strange, but brilliant man. He did direct Fox via email and phone calls from France to the animators in America.

Adding to the strangeness

It is almost as if the film was not made for an audience, as if it was not supposed to be seen and that we, the viewers, accidentally stumbled upon this collection of oddball characters going about their daily lives. There is no clear message (apart from some father-son drama) or heroes. Everyone is flawed in some way, there are ominous undertones all over this film and none of it matters. I loved it!

Something old, something new

What makes this film stand out as something new, something fresh, is the low tech, ‘old’ technology of stop-motion animation. In the new Avatar world of perfect, very slick, very cool animation, this ‘throwback’ (along with films such as Waltz with Bashir, Persepolis) is a fresh breeze.

Best One Liner

Fox , who longs for this chicken thieving days, contemplates his purpose in life and asks the question, “And how can a fox ever be happy without, you’ll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?”

Something interesting

The word ‘cuss’ which means to swear is used instead of actual swear words. For example a cluster cuss!

I agree with the label top critic Joe Morgenstern of the The Wall Street Journal bestowed on this film; ‘a lovely oddity’.

PS: Nespresso makes a mean espresso.