Director: Wes Anderson

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Main Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Seymour Cassel, Brian Cox, Mason Gamble, Sara Tanaka, Stephen McCole, Connie Nielsen, Luke Wilson

Plot: Max Fischer dedicates his entire existence to the private school he attends, called Rushmore. He runs just about every extracurricular activity you can imagine, and even directs his own plays, but he’s doing terribly in his classes. He falls in love with Miss Cross, an elementary school teacher but finds himself stuck in a rivalry when his friend (and parent of 2 boys at the school) Herman Blume also falls for Miss Cross.

My Thoughts: Rushmore ended up on my watch list after I fell in love with The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom, and I asked for suggestions of which Wes Anderson movie I should see next. I went in blind, not looking up a plot or trailer or anything before seeing it, and I’m glad I did because it was one of the funniest openings to a movie I’ve ever seen!

If I’m totally honest, I didn’t love this as much as the other Wes Anderson movies I’ve seen. I really enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t have the same qwirkyness that the others had. You can definitely tell it’s a Wes Anderson movie though, and I think it’ll be the kind of movie that will grow on me the more times I watch it, and it’s definitely a movie I’ll happily see again.

Best Bit: Max and Herman at war with each other. Watching the feud start with a swarm of bees in a hotel room and then escalating into something leading to an arrest was hilarious.

Worst Bit: I wouldn’t say there was a particular moment that I didn’t enjoy in Rushmore, it just lacked the wow factor for me!

Fun Trivia: So I’m not looking up IMDB for this one, I have some trivia of my own. The line that Max says, “Tell that stupid Mick he just made my list of things to do today” is the name of a Fall Out Boy song – and Rushmore is the reason they named it that! I was a bit of a die-hard FoB fan back in the day…

My Rating: 3 and a half aquariums out of 5, which Max may or may not have got permission to build for a certain someone.