The Larick Film Club showing The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, 15)

The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 American comedy drama with many quirks and a sense of poignancy directed by Wes Anderson. It stars Gene Hackman, who sadly passed away earlier this year aged 95, as well as Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Danny Glover, and Owen Wilson.

The film follows the lives of three brilliant eccentric siblings who experience great success in youth, and even greater disappointment and failure in adulthood. They are not on the best of terms. When their ailing father, Royal Tenenbaum (Hackman), summons them all, they find themselves reunited under one roof....

The Royal Tenenbaums is not Gene Hackman’s final film, as the actor would go on to make two more films after its release. But it feels that Tenenbaums is a beautifully appropriate swansong for the beloved actor.  Many critics praised Hackman's performance as Royal Tenenbaum, a role for which he was also nominated for several awards including the Golden Globes and the National Society of Film Critics.