Captain Fantastic

Have you ever wanted to throw aside technology and live out your days in the wilderness? Captain Fantastic is the story of a couple who raise their six children in the forests of Washington DC, without running water, technology, and all the luxuries that we enjoy. Instead, they are taught how to hunt, build shelters, sing, dance, and to speak several different languages. Visually, this film is stunning, and focuses on the wider questions of existence in the 21st Century. Their paradise is shattered when the mother has to be taken to a psychiatric hospital, dies, and her father, played by Frank Langella, tells them not to attend the funeral. Ben, played by Viggo Mortensen, decides to disobey this, and takes his children to their mother’s home state. The film progresses into the heart-wrenching yet comic way in which the children mix into the real world, encounter technology, and learn to interact with other people. What is most interesting is the question of whether or not Ben’s raising of his children in the wild is morally admirable, or a form of child abuse. Either way, this film pulls at the heart strings on a human level, and is backed up by superior child actors, who make this film so realistic, and should resonate with everyone, for it touches on the very essence of family love.

Dominic Lam