Thinking About Chas Tenenbaum

Warning: the following film analysis contains spoilers.

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I re-watched The Royal Tenenbaums this weekend. Watching it the second time was a different experience, but I think I liked it better. When I first watched the movie, I had certain expectations about the characters and plot that didn't exactly pan out. It was oddly disappointing to see how the movie turned out when I thought it would be different.

The second time was much better. I knew what was happening, so I could fixate on the details and characters a little more. I even cried a couple times, which surprised me. One character I connected with that I hadn't before was Chas Tenenbaum.

Chas, played by Ben Stiller, is the oldest Tenenbaum child. He is a business prodigy, and later in life loses his wife. He cannot deal with the loss properly, obsessing over the safety of his two children and moving back into his childhood home. Another dimension of tension in his character comes from his strained relationship with his father. The two have always had an antagonistic relationship, and Chas cannot deal with Royal reentering his life.

I feel like Chas is often overlooked. People who watch The Royal Tenenbaums often fixate on Margot and Richie, who are definitely interesting, but less mature characters. They're almost like teenagers, angry at the world and angsty. Chas's outbursts are somewhat childish and stubborn, but he has the most adult issues to deal with. The death of his wife and the stress of raising his two sons wear on him.

I said I cried - and I did, twice. Once was during the classic "by the way of the green line bus" scene, where Margot and Richie meet. It was poetic and beautiful and it made me cry.

The second was at the end of the movie, when Royal Tenenbaum dies. The narrator says, "Royal had a heart attack at the age of sixty-eight. Chas rode with him in the ambulance, and was the only witness to his father’s death." And I lost it.

Chas and Royal's relationship changes so much through the movie. It starts as unforgiving and angry. Through flashbacks, the viewers learn that Royal ignored and antagonized Chas as a child. In return, Chas gets his father disbarred and thrown in prison. Chas, unable to let go of the hurt Royal has caused him, is callous when Royal says he is dying. The anger Chas carries with him is symbolized by the bb pellet stuck in his hand. He could easily remove it, but he would rather carry his hatred for his father around than let it go.

The ending, then, proves extremely cathartic. Chas couldn't have cared whether his father died or not. Chas is the solitary witness to that death. Over the course of the movie, he learns to forgive his father (and maybe even himself) for the past. He lets go, and it is such a relief. It's really a testament to Wes Anderson's film making that he creates ensembles of characters that all have depth.