There aren't a lot of zippy one-liners or acidic putdowns. Slapstick is kept to a minimum. Dirty jokes are practically non-existent.
So what is it that makes "Rushmore" so consistently funny?
The question is probably unanswerable, but it appears to have something to do with the combined forces of director Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson's offbeat script, the spectacularly dry comic performances by Bill Murray and newcomer Jason Schwartzman and that peculiar magic that seems to develop out of nowhere whenever the right elements fall into place on a film set. As he proved in his debut film, "Bottle Rocket," originality is Anderson's hallmark, and it's evident in just about every aspect of "Rushmore."
For instance, rather than cast the latest Tom Cruise wannabe as his lead, Anderson has opted for Schwartzman, whose hollow eyes and slightly inflated facial features recall a young Dustin Hoffman. Though his plot centers on the possibility of a May-September relationship between 15-year-old Max (Schwartzman) and comely thirtysomething Rosemarie Cross (Olivia Williams), Anderson steers far clear of the territory covered by "The Graduate" and "Summer of '42." Even the soundtrack selections are unpredictable: The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away," Chad & Jeremey's "A Summer Song," and John Lennon's "Oh Yoko."
And who could have guessed Murray would find such a role this late in his career, especially after a string of recent failures? His turn as joyless millionaire Herman Blume is both hilarious and a splendid characterization, on a par with his performances in "Tootsie" and "Groundhog Day."
Set primarily at a stately private school, "Rushmore" involves an increasingly intense competition between Max and Herman for the affections of widowed Rosemarie. For overachieving Max - who divides his time between such activities as representing Russia in Model U.N., serving as the founder of Rushmore's Trap and Skeet Club and presiding over the Calligraphy Club - Rosemarie is simply one more challenge to meet. For Herman, she's one of the few bright spots in his otherwise dreary existence.
She's also almost as far off the beam as the men pursuing her. With the possible exception of Seymour Cassel's part as Max's dad, everyone in "Rushmore" is at least slightly twisted, although rarely in obvious ways.
Even the throwaway details in Anderson and Wilson's screenplay are surprising. Max, we learn, got a scholarship to Rushmore on the strength of a play he wrote at age 7, "a little one-act about Watergate." A tense confrontation between Herman and Max's solemn-faced prodigy Dirk (Mason Gamble) is followed by a bizarre bit involving Herman's gleefully moronic sons. The lead role in Max's lavish drama about Vietnam goes to a Scottish transfer student whose pronounced burr somehow goes unnoticed by the audience.
Quirkiness abounds in "Rushmore," yet the beauty of the film is that the weird touches and slightly warped personalities always seem to make perfect sense in the context of the story. Even though you may not always understand exactly why you're laughing, laugh you will.
James Sanford
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