Rushmore Review
by Susan Granger (Ssg722 AT aol DOT com)February 3rd, 1999
Susan Granger's review of "RUSHMORE" (Touchstone Pictures/Disney) Until now, writer/director Wes Anderson, who was recently honored with the New Generation Award by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assoc., is best known for "Bottle Rocket," for which he received MTV's "Best New Filmmaker Award" in 1996. "Rushmore" will change that. Set at a posh boys' prep school, Rushmore Academy, this startlingly original, darkly comic story revolves around a year in the life of 15 year-old Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), an eccentric over-achiever who is destined for success. He's the editor of the school newspaper and yearbook; founder of the Debate Team, Beekeepers, and the Double-team Dodgeball Society; president of the Max Fischer Players, French Club, German Club, Chess Club and practically everything else. A scholarship student, he's applying for early admission to Oxford with Harvard as his safety. But he's also, academically, one of the worst students in the school. Threatened with expulsion, his adolescent mind is filled with only one obsession: his hopeless love for a widowed, first-grade teacher (Olivia Williams) with whom his mentor, a married tycoon (Bill Murray), is having an affair. Newcomer Jason Schwartzman (real-life son of actress Talia Shire) is superb as the weird, annoying, megalomaniacal dreamer. "Find out what you love to do and do it for the rest of your life," he says, adding, "For me, it's going to Rushmore." And Bill Murray may score a Best Supporting Actor nomination with his droll, pathos-edged performance. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Rushmore" is a refreshing, achingly funny 8, as it chronicles the tension between adult yearnings and underage limitations from an oddly twisted, quirky, unconventional perspective, reminiscent of Holden Caulfield's in J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye."
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
