The Royal Tenenbaums

While watching The Royal Tenenbaums, one of the things that stood out to me the most was the use of costuming. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss specifically each of the Tenenbaum children separately and what stood out to me in their costumes.

Chas' family is wearing the same thing throughout the whole movie, except during the wedding scene and the funeral scene at the end. As seen in the picture above, all of them look exactly the same - same hairstyles, same red adidas tracking suits, etc. Just the fact that they look identical resembles the overly controlling atmosphere that Chas puts on the household. He wants everyone to follow a strict order, and expects his kids to be exactly like him. Also, the fact that they are wearing red suits that are made for conveniently running shows the sense of urgency and constant being in a hurry that exists in Chas' household.

Margot Tenenbaum is almost always seen with her blonde short hairdo, her really heavy black eyeliner, her fur coat, her hair pins, and a cigarette. I'm not sure if any of these aspects symbolize anything, but they certainly do create a certain image that Wes Anderson was trying to portray. I feel that the specific choice of costuming for Margot most accurately conveyed her nonchalant, "emo," apathetic attitude toward everything.

In my opinion, Richie Tenenbaum's costume was probably the most important one in this film. As was suggested during our class discussions, Richie's costume demonstrates a Jesus-like image. His hairstyle and his beard look exactly like how Jesus is portrayed in every painting and in modern culture. However, other aspects of his costume suggest other things. For example, the tennis headband that he always wears suggests that even though his tennis career went downhill, he still wants to cling on to something from his successful past simply by wearing something that connects to it. Maybe by seeing himself wear the headband, he was reminded of his past, and, therefore, not as insecure about his present. The fact that he always wears shades also symbolizes his isolation from all the other characters in the movie, and also gives him a mysterious image. Another reason why I believe that Wes Anderson chose to pay especially close attention to Richie's costume was that Richie's complete removal of his signature items: his beard, his hair, his headband, and his shades towards the end of the movie symbolized the transitioning period in his life. Anderson was attempting to portray in the change of costume itself that Richie was about to do something huge, and perhaps maybe even signifying the climax of the movie. Also, I feel that because Richie survived after a horrible suicide attempt confirms the "Jesus theory" that we had as a class - that just as Jesus was resurrected after death, so was Richie kept completely safe and alive after an extremely near-death experience.