Rushmore is Wes Anderson’s 2nd feature film, but it’s the first that unmistakably “feels” like Wes Anderson. It’s where we really get a chance to see what Anderson’s style would evolve into in the two decades that would follow. It is the first truly “essential” film in the director’s catalog.
Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is an oddity of a character. In some ways he’s your classic high-school over-achiever; he attends an the elite Rushmore Academy, he’s editor of the newspaper, leads a boys chorus, directs plays, and has started countless clubs. But while Max excels in the extracurricular department he fails spectacularly when it comes to the actual curriculum. The film opens with him being put on what is essentially “double secret academic probation”, with his scholarship at high risk of being revoked.
Max is a boisterous 10th grader who tries too hard at anything he sets his mind to, but often succeeds beyond the world’s wildest expectations. His biggest failings are that his newest obsessions are not always good for him and he is not always good to the people around him. He displays a level of extreme confidence that borders on pathological.
Over the course of Rushmore Max finds himself befriending the Mr. Blume (Bill Murray), the father of two academy bullies and developing an unhealthy crush on Ms. Cross (Olivia Williams). These two unhealthy relationships unravel the high-school life Max has built for himself when these adults develop their own relationship.
Spoiler Warning
In this piece I’ll try not to spoil every moment of the film but I will be discussing and dissecting elements of the film in detail. Beyond this point expect and be prepared for spoilers. You have been warned.
The Good
Like Bottle Rocket before it, Rushmore features a lead actor in his debut film role. This time it is Jason Schwartzman making his debut as Max. Also like Bottle Rocket the film hinges on the performance of this inexperienced actor, and succeeds far more often than it fails. While Schwartzman is unquestionably the star of the film Bil Murray and Olivia Williams also turn in spectacular supporting performances as they find themselves unexpectedly pulled into Max’s odd Rushmore Academy orbit.
Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson once again collaborated to write Rushmore. In interviews they would both paint some of Max’s personality and experience as autobiographical. Max has Anderson’s artsy tendency to write school plays but Anderson’s shyness has been replaced with Wilson’s loud exuberance. One of the key plot points was apparently mined from Wilson’s past when he was kicked out of a fancy prep-school. In fact it’s easy to imagine a younger Owen Wilson being perfect for the role of Max.
Despite the real-world connections that this enigmatic character has to the men who conceived him, Max’s world hails from a genre that I think of “high (school) fantasy”. This genre is really more of a theme and setting because the tone can differ so wildly. In these fantasy films teenagers have a type of agency and “coolness” that entirely alludes their real world counterparts. Rushmore finds it’s footing next to two pillars of the high-school fantasy genre it has elements of the light-hearted comedies like Clueless but Max as a character clearly sees himself in noir mold for most of the film’s second act, as if he belongs in Brick.
The Bad
Rushmore is not a film without it’s blemishes. Max as a character has to walk a fine line to not become grating. There is one scene toward the middle of the film where Max is at dinner with the weird adults in his life and confesses his love for the academy’s first grade teacher. In this scene Ms. Cross has invited a friend (Luke Wilson) to join them and a drunken Max makes a scene. I found this particular scene to make my skin crawl. I am very susceptible to feeling “vicarious embarrassment” or “second-hand embarrassment” (or Fremdschämen, if you like fun oddly-specific German words) and this scene made me cringe for it’s entire duration.
Like Bottle Rocket before it the plot hinges on a “love story” that is a bit inappropriate. In Bottle Rocket our male lead started a relationship by basically following a poor woman around her place of work. In Rushmore, Max develops an instant attraction to the Academy’s 1st grade teach Rosemary Cross then proceeds to insinuate himself into her life, at once point enters her home under false pretenses, and displays several other examples of crummy behavior. To Rushmore‘s credit, the film identifies these behaviors as being troubling and they represent Max’s ultimate self-inflicted downfall. But it is a notable that this theme of inappropriate “courting” is 2 for 2 so far.
Wes Anderson Style
As mentioned at the beginning, Rushmore has that Wes Anderson “feel” to it. It’s hasn’t come all that close to reaching it’s logical extreme (we’ll see that later in The Grand Budapest Hotel and Asteroid City. But we’re starting to see that style that would come to define Anderson in the decades to follow.
There are many examples of his “planar composition” starting to become much more pronounced in this film. There are a lot more shots with carefully dressed flat background planes. Characters often exist in their own plane in these scenes. This works well with the “curtains” that open and close chapters of the film, giving the impression that all of this film’s plot is taking place as one of Max’s elaborate stage plays. This implied (and later explicit) framing to the film as a “story in a story” will come up time and time again in Wes Anderson’s filmography.
Another element of Wes Anderson’s undeniable allure is that he loves to work with certain actors time and time again. This film sees Luke Wilson (along with third Wilson brother Andrew) returns in a small supporting role after starring in Bottle Rocket. And while this is the first time we see Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in this project it will absolutely not be the last.
Bottom Line
Rushmore is a fantastical little high school world where a fifteen year old is able to put together Hollywood caliber school plays, get a Aquarium built, and inspire an entire school. It’s this type of “mundane fantasy” that will come to be a staple of Wes Anderson’s work as we get deeper into his catalog. We’ll visit “fantasy summer camp”, “fantasy hotel”, and “fantasy boat”, there’ll even be some talking animals at some point. While Bottle Rocket is the first film from Wes Anderson the man, Rushmore will go down as the first film from Wes Anderson the brand. It’s absolute must watch if you’ve enjoyed any of his more modern work.