Wes Anderson's 1998 high-school comedy functions as both personal coming-of-age story and cosmic parable.

Rushmore, a modestly budgeted 1998 high-school comedy from writer-director Wes Anderson, functions as both personal coming-of-age story and cosmic parable, as we watch precocious 15-year-old Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) spoil his garden of Eden, experience redemption, and humbly find his way toward restoration.

This video essay was made for the Think Christian Movie Club, which holds quarterly online gatherings of faithful film fanatics. On July 24, 2023, at 8 pm Central, I'll lead a discussion on "The Restorative Cinema of Wes Anderson." In his narratives and his formal choices, Anderson's films move, inexorably and comically, from brokenness to wholeness (or at least as whole as things can be in this broken world). We'll consider how these movies echo the Christian narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

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Topics: Movies