HE PREPARED THEM FOR EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE OUTSIDE WORLD.

When Ben (Viggo Mortensen) receives tragic news, he brings his six children out of the forests where he’s raised them and travels to civilization where he clashes with his wife’s relatives. The director’s feature film debut may look like a deliberately quirky comedy-drama meant to charm less discerning indie audiences, but the film has us hooked right from the first startling sequence where we are made to understand just how far Mortensen has gone in the quest to raise his children far from society. What follows is a moving, perceptive and entertaining journey where the flaws and benefits of his attitude are examined, with superior acting from Mortensen and his wild bunch of kids.

2016-U.S. 118 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Monica Levinson, Jamie Patricof, Shivani Rawat, Lynette Howell Taylor. Written and directed by Matt Ross. Cast: Viggo Mortensen (Ben), Frank Langella (Jack), Kathryn Hahn (Harper), Steve Zahn, George MacKay, Samantha Isler.

Last word: “[Mortensen] is essential also because I think that… My agents at the time had passed it around to executives in Los Angeles as a writing sample, and everyone was proposing comedians to me. I did not get as single decent suggestion for the actor. It was either based on someone who has great… You know, a foreign actor, or it was someone… because they read the script. It had a humorous tone that I think is there. They kept on thinking that the character had to be funny. And I was saying no, because the kids would be funny, but it’s contextually funny. You don’t need to have a comedian. He doesn’t need to have a comedic vibe.” (Ross, First Showing)

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