Fantastic Mr. Fox

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" tells the adventures of Mr. Fox, an elegant middle-aged clever fox who works as a columnist in a local newspaper. His youth dedicated to poaching chicken seems to be over; or at least so is implied by the first scene, when trapped in a chicken coop he promises his future wife to give up his wild animal attitude if they manage to escape from the trap.

In the course of the story we will know how the couple managed to escape. Due to the development of events, the protagonist will be forced to put back in practice his fantastic skills.

The film, based on the Welsh Roald Dahl’s book, "Fantastic Mr. Fox", gives full attention to a refreshing fantasy, a relentless black humor and a particular sense of poetic justice.

As in those books, the anarchy that can shed from some passages and characters manages to transmit several existential and social observations of the author, who was a "difficult personality" in the broad sense of the term.

For its part, the great success of the film is to recreate Dahl’s literary grace with a thin and coherent animated version. It does so by wisely using a frame to frame technique  as well as a staging based on the composition and not on technology or on references to other films.

This adaptation by Wes Anderson stands out from the trends of contemporary animation, structuring this adventure on the inventiveness, intelligence and imagination of the creator of the story and its character.

Director: Wes Anderson

Writers: Roald Dahl (novel), Wes Anderson (screenplay)

Stars: George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray