CAPTAIN FANTASTIC Trailer

Captain Fantastic will likely live or die based on Viggo Mortensen’s performance, as his character is the only one that understands both the isolated world he established for his children and the regular world they must now enter. The hope of what he and his wife were trying to accomplish must be communicated through him, and whatever ramifications come from their decisions will fall squarely on his shoulders. It’s a lonely role in a movie populated by a ton of characters, and it’s hard to come up with a guy more likely to pull it off than Mortensen.

The supporting cast around him are filled with heavy hitters and promising young actors, which leaves me anxious to see them all play off of each other. Serious kudos must go out to casting director Jeanne McCarthy for putting this bunch together and to writer/director Matt Ross for making the material that attracted them all. This is just Ross’s second feature film, and he gave himself the challenge of getting a large ensemble to navigate some pretty dense material.

I say dense because it doesn’t look like Mortensen’s character is being portrayed as some hippy dad. He seems to have very precise, albeit radical, ideas about parenting, and in the current cultural climate of America, radical ideas aren’t easy to dismiss. People are becoming receptive to the notion that America is doing something fundamentally wrong, that the public outrage being expressed after mass shootings, racially biased police activity, and mishandled sexual assault cases are no longer adequate. Something needs to change, and the mixture of grief, uncertainty, and hope that Captain Fantastic seems to be grappling with, while not explicitly linked to current events, may just capture the mood that many of us are in.

Captain Fantastic is directed by Matt Ross and stars Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella, and Kathryn Hahn. It will be released in the U.S. on July 8th, 2016 and in the U.K. on September 9th, 2016. For international release dates, click here.

Do you think Captain Fantastic will take a nuanced look at nontraditional parenting? Let us know in the comments!