Captain Fantastic is a 2016 movie that got a limited release earlier in 2016 and is now available via streaming. It stars Viggo Mortenson as a man living in the woods on the Pacific Northwest with his six children. He teaches them to hunt, to farm, to knife fight, climb mountains, and quantum mechanics. They live off the grid and he teaches them book learning and survival techniques but he’s not a crazy person or an anarchist or even particularly judgmental – it’s a very interesting character and a good performance… enough so that I find the title of the movie more sarcastic than it deserves.
The movie spends a good while with the family in the forest when they get word that the mother/wife has died and they have to pack up in their bus and travel back into the real world for the funeral. It’s a culture shock on certain levels since the kids (ranging from 8 to 18) are all very smart and educated, but they don’t have real-world experience so there’s some charm, some comedy, some embarrassment, and some drama as they make their way cross country (it’s a bit of a road trip).
And that’s the basic movie – it’s a really good experience. Dramatic, charming, funny, touching… and a great use of Sweet Child o’ Mine near the end. I recommend this movie… unless you have a severe phobia of watching children hunt and learning to knife fight.
Score: 88