Bottle Rocket
After 25 years of watching Wes Anderson’s aesthetic become solidified and firmly identifiable, it’s striking to go back to “Bottle Rocket,” and see how little of it is there. The dry, quirky sense of humor was immediately there in the screenplay by he and Owen Wilson, but the visual style is shaggy and loose, and I think it’s part of why “Bottle Rocket” remains, resolutely, one of the most charming films of his career.
“Bottle Rocket” began as a short film Anderson and Wilson wrote about friends trying to be criminals. I’ll admit that I’ve never watched the original short, but one can see the bones of this narrative working in such a format. Where the feature captures us is the ways we’re shown how these characters are smart, but not really smart enough to be criminals. They want to be good at it, but something always feels off. Ultimately, they’re LARPers, until they’re not; they kind of get what they deserve in the end.
The tone is set very early on, as Anthony (Luke Wilson) is getting out of a mental facility. He is setting up a rope made of blankets for an escape before the head of the facility comes to see him. He’s caught…but wait, this was his last day anyway? Turns out Anthony was here voluntarily for depression, and the escape is being staged for his best friend, Dignan (Owen Wilson), whom he didn’t have the heart to tell this was voluntary. Dignan has planned an elaborate escape for him, and he feels the need to follow through with that. Dignan is an idea man, and he has a long-game written out for them as they embark on a life of crime with their other friend, Bob (Robert Musgrave), and work to get in good with Dignan’s former employer, Mr. Henry (James Caan), but we’re not at that part yet.
One of the reasons “Bottle Rocket” is so successful is because the script by Anderson and Wilson follows so closely to the “criminals on the lam” formula. The heart of the movie is when they’re in a motel laying low after their first, official “job” (they actually pulled an earlier one, but, well, it kind of doesn’t count). Dignan tries to get them to use fake names and change their hair, but it’s a hard thing to happen when Anthony is captivated by a maid at the hotel named Inez (Lumi Cavazos) and Bob’s brother needs him. This stretch of the film gets to the heart of its charm, as Anderson follows his characters through the most logical, wonderful progressions of their stories with a wit and warmth that makes us all the more enamored with them when they finally go back home, and then get ready for the big “heist” at the end where fates are decided.
I’ve been a fan of all of Anderson’s films, but I think the reason this and “Moonrise Kingdom” are my favorites is because there is a sincerity to the main characters that cuts through the very particular style Anderson writes and directs with. (“The Darjeeling Limited” is up there, as well, but that is my favorite of his dramatic comedies, and it hits a different place than this does.) The Wilsons and Musgrave are terrific at playing these characters genuinely and comedically, and Luke and Cavazos have a sweet chemistry that makes that subplot work well. I remember when my mom and I watched this on VHS for the first time- we immediately connected with it, and for Anderson, it remains a film I hold dear as one of the smartest, most original directorial debuts of the 1990s.
