He is known for one of his biggest roles as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, but Viggo Mortensen’s latest role in Captain Fantastic could not be more different.
We know what you’re thinking, Captain Fantastic…sounds quite like popular superhero film, right? But there’s nothing supernatural about him. In fact, Mortensen’s character Ben is a humble and loving husband and father to six very special children. Though writer-director, Matt Ross, admits: “It’s not an accident that it sounds like a superhero movie. It asks a question, which is: ‘Is he?’ He is a father who’s trying to behave in a superheroic manner, an extreme form of conscious parenting.”
The film itself is about a family of hippies who have chosen to live peacefully in the forest of the Pacific Northwest, and Ben has raised his children teaching them about survival out in the wilderness. Hunting for food, intense training and defence techniques, as well as school-education.
The beginning of the film sort of feels like something from The Goonies, as their lives are basically one big epic adventure in the forest. Reality hits when the kids finally pluck up the courage to ask their father when their mother is coming home, after being hospitalised for three months for a mental disorder. Ben doesn’t have an immediate answer for his beloved children, who are missing their mother terribly, yet he communicates with them like adults and is quite open about what’s going on with her despite their difference in ages.
They are completely cut away from civilisation and in order to get an update on his wife’s health status, Ben has to go into town to use a phone. He and his eldest son, Bo (George MacKay), hop in their family car ‘Steve’ – an old green school bus filled with books – and drive to the nearest town.
This is when you first find out that although they’re home-schooled and completely isolated from society, the kids are extremely intelligent. While in town, Bo checks the PO box and discovers he has been awarded a place at some of America’s top universities. Despite his book smarts however, it’s clear that he struggles socially when he is approached by a group of young girls and becomes extremely shy.
Before Bo has the opportunity to confront his father and tell him his good news, which he has been keeping a secret, afraid of how he would react, Ben finds out most terrible news that the mother of his children has committed suicide. The news is devastating for the whole family, with some of the children even putting the blame on their father for their way of living.
Everything gets even more crazy and out of control when Ben speaks to his wife’s father, Jack (Frank Langella), to inform him of her burial wishes after finding her will. Unfortunately for Ben, Jack despises him and bans him from attending the funeral, threatening to have him arrested and taking away the children. Devastated by his father in laws decision to keep him away, Ben goes against everything he believes in and gives into his wishes, before the children encourage him stand to what’s right.
There’s a lot that goes on in the film and this is just the first 10 minutes. The story unfolds a whole lot further, as the family embark on the “save mum” mission in their trusty school bus Steve, to get retrieve her body and honour her will.
Captain Fantastic is out in cinemas on 9th September 2016.
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