By Tray Butler

For the AJC


Filmmaker Wes Anderson earned household-name status in certain circles thanks to his deadpan “dramedies” such as “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore.” But in his latest, the hipster darling trots out his trademark style of offbeat storytelling for an even tougher crowd: children.

“Fantastic Mr. Fox” uses stop-motion animation to bring to life a book by Roald Dahl, the late British author best known for his macabre classic, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” While respect for Dahl resonates in “Mr. Fox,” the movie ultimately feels not so far removed from Anderson’s live-action movies.

“I do see it as a children’s film,” Anderson said in an interview during the movie’s premiere at the London Film Festival. “But the children’s films that I love most and the ones I loved as a child were the ones that weren’t particularly aimed at anybody.”

He described Dahl as a major hero from his childhood in Houston. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was the first book he ever owned.

Dahl wrote the story for kids ages 7 to 9, younger than his usual readers, with a plot so simple it’s hardly even a fable.

In Anderson’s expanded adaptation, the tale of the sly Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and his war with three bloodthirsty farmers gets a contemporary back story and a larger cast of ill-adjusted forest animals (including Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Willem Defoe).

“I remember being scared by Roald Dahl, and I loved that,” Anderson said. “I don’t think we made [the film] any darker, but we tried to keep it as dark.”

Kids may eat up the slapstick action as the critters flee the farmers, but adults will probably relate more to the script’s subtle anxieties. After a forced retirement from his hen stealing, Mr. Fox suffers from workplace boredom and real estate envy. The movie dwells on rivalries between relatives — familiar territory from “The Royal Tenenbaums” and Anderson’s other efforts.

Anderson first approached Liccy Dahl, the author’s widow, about filming “Mr. Fox” more than a decade ago. Dubious at first, she later gave him the green light and even invited him to write the screenplay at Gipsy House, Dahl’s family home in Buckinghamshire, England.

The film features dozens of details inspired by the author’s daily life, from a re-creation of his worn-out writing chair to a version of his village pub. Anderson is famous for such attention to minutiae, even if the references will be lost on almost everyone.

“All I wanted to do was to make it as much like Dahl as it could possibly be,” he said. “I can’t really guess how he would have expanded the story to make it a movie, but that’s what we were trying to do.”

While the director was busy adding in Dahl references, the animators looked elsewhere for inspiration.

Production designer Nelson Lowry (“Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride”) studied Anderson’s films, noting their signature framing devices and color schemes.

“It was a little bit of a fishing expedition — in a good way,” Lowry said. “You think you know what a Wes Anderson film looks like until you try to describe what it looks like.”

What results is an animated feature unique in its visual approach, with a Thanksgiving-ready palette of golden browns and warm oranges, a reliance on side-scrolling scenes and characters who often face the camera mugshot-style.

Anderson said he always intended the movie to be made in stop-motion, a back-breaking, two-year process involving more than 500 puppets.

“I wanted to do a stop-motion movie with animals with fur,” he said, “because I just loved the way it looks. It’s sort of odd, sort of magical.”

Stop-motion has enjoyed a renaissance in the past several years with features such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Coraline.” “Mr. Fox” wisely avoids many clichés of the genre and ends up being so richly textured that grown-ups might just dig it more than their kids.

If Anderson seems crazy for taking on a children’s book, he may actually be crazy like a fox. Roald Dahl would surely approve.