Product Review

The dazzling sophomore film from Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox) is equal parts coming-of-age story, French New Wave homage, and screwball comedy. Tenth grader Max Fischer (The Darjeeling Limited’s Jason Schwartzman) is Rushmore Academy’s most extracurricular student—and its least scholarly. He faces expulsion, and enters into unlikely friendships with both a lovely first-grade teacher (The Ghost Writer’s Olivia Williams) and a melancholy self-made millionaire (Groundhog Day’s Bill Murray, in an award-winning performance). Set to a soundtrack of classic British Invasion tunes, Rushmore defies categorization; it captures the pain and exuberance of adolescence with wit, emotional depth, and cinematic panache.