Driving by his will of keeping his promise to his wife, who has committed suicide and asked him to burn her body, instead burying it, Ben Cash, a father of six children, who in order to teach his children to get along with any hard situations, he lives in the wilderness with them, struggles against convincing the Christian father for his wife.
Matt Ross' screenplay occasionally stumbles (especially late in the proceedings) and the ending opts for a too-facile resolution but the director/writer offers moments of genuine power and pathos that make it easy to forgive the missteps.
An unusual film that oscillates between a road movie and the chronicle of a family that beats in its terrain any alien domesticity and that concludes like a very preNobel homage to Bob Dylan. [Full review in Spanish]
This is really a movie for upper-middle class hipsters who once fancied themselves firebrands and status quo-challengers in college, but now consider only buying organic food at Whole Foods and not vaccinating their kids to be radical acts.
Films want you to root for the guy with the alternative lifestyle or the radical take on the world, thumbing his nose at the stuffed shirts. Captain Fantastic isn't so sure.
The caricature of self-righteous leftism on display here is spot on, and Captain Fantastic walks a fine line between seeing the good faith in Ben's Thoreau-like beliefs and acknowledging the rather authoritarian way in which he pushes them on his kids.
Matt Ross has crafted a truly fantastic tale of the joy of living in the wild while physically training and home schooling a brood of children, far from the madding crowd.
It's a rare movie that asks such big questions - about parenting, about family, about modern-day America - and comes up with answers that are moving and meaningful, that make you laugh and cry.
[It] shines as a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy for a certain outdoors-oriented mind set, which almost makes up for its over-the-top moments and underwritten characters.
