Summary
Richie goes to Eli’s apartment and the two old friends hug. Inside, Richie confronts Eli about the fact that he mentioned the letter to Margot. Eli and Richie sit in awkward silence, when Eli mentions he’s on mescaline. They don’t say much more about it, and when Eli mentions that Margot is married and Richie’s sister, Richie corrects him, adding, “Adopted.”
We see Royal going to the hotel where he’s been staying. They’ve cleared out his room, and he’s upset about the prospect of having to find another place to live. After bumming a quarter off one of the hotel workers, Royal calls Richie from a payphone. The scene shifts to Richie talking to the rest of his family around the dinner table, telling them that Royal is lonely, and suggesting that Royal come to the apartment and stay in his room. “Are you out of your mind?” Chas says, indignantly, calling Richie a “poor washed-up papa’s boy.” Chas gets all the more upset when his two sons seem open to the idea of Royal staying there. “Well he’s already up there,” Richie says, suddenly.
Upstairs, we see Richie sitting next to Royal in a hospital bed. “Get out,” says Chas, and Royal gets out of bed, but falls onto the floor. As Ethel comes into the room, alarmed, Royal tells Pagoda to call Dr. McClure. The scene shifts to later, when Dr. McClure (actually the hotel worker whom Royal asked for a quarter, in disguise) examines Royal. McClure tells the Tenenbaums that Royal is in stable condition, but needs extra care and stomach cancer medication. “McClure” gets a page from another hotel worker as he tells Chas that they can absolutely not move Royal in his condition.
We see Royal telling Ethel that Pagoda has a parcel that contains his will and funeral instructions. “I never did stop loving you, by the way,” Royal says to his ex-wife. She seems unimpressed by his romantic words and leaves the room. Henry appears in the hall and looks at Royal as he pulls a hamburger out of a bag. Later, Chas comes in the room and turns the light off on Royal, telling him that it’s “Lights out.”
We see Richie going to sleep in a tent. Chas peeks in and says, “Looks like you and dad are back together again,” to which Richie responds, “He’s your dad too.” Chas disagrees, saying, “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of this, but believe me, whatever it is, it’s not worth it.” Richie doesn’t take any of Chas’ hostility personally and simply keeps telling his brother that he loves him, which only makes Chas more hostile.
The next day, we see Royal smoking out his window. When he throws the cigarette down into the street, he notices Eli climbing out of a window below. “I know you asshole!” he yells down to Eli, who waves up at him. The scene shifts and we see Ethel looking at a magazine cover with a shirtless Eli on it. Margot sits nearby and asks if Eli sent it; Ethel confirms, “he always sends me his clippings.” Suddenly, Raleigh knocks on the window, wanting to talk to Margot. In the garden, he asks Margot how long she plans to spend at home, and if she’s ever coming home. She tells him maybe not, sadly, and he is crestfallen. “Have you met someone else?” he asks, but she doesn’t know how to answer him.
Inside, Royal confronts Margot, saying, “I don’t like the way you’re treating Raleigh…You’re two-timing him with that bloodsucker, Eli Cash.” His revelation stops Margot short, and she shoots him a glare before leaving the room. Meanwhile, on the roof, Raleigh talks to Richie and asks him if he knows what’s going on with Margot. “I believe she’s having an affair,” Raleigh says, asking for Richie’s advice. Hearing about Margot’s alleged affair, Richie becomes enraged and punches through the glass of his bird sanctuary. Richie comes out and asks Raleigh who he thinks Margot is sleeping with, but he has no idea.
Royal goes downstairs to visit his grandsons, but Chas doesn’t want them hanging out with him. Later, Royal complains to Ethel that Chas doesn’t let his sons have any fun, but she insists that Chas “has his reasons.” Royal isn’t convinced and says, “You can’t raise boys to be scared of life. You have to brew some recklessness into them.” Ethel tells him she thinks that’s terrible advice.
The scene shifts again and we see a montage of Royal taking Chas’ kids out and helping them unleash their wilder sides. They jump into a pool together, run across the street through traffic, drive go-carts underneath a bridge, throw water balloons at a taxi, steal from a deli, ride on the back of a garbage truck, and sit in a circle with Pagoda. Royal tells the boys that Pagoda was an assassin hired to kill him, but that they became friends instead.
When they arrive home, Chas is furious, especially when he finds blood on Uzi’s forehead. Chas pulls his father into a closet and warns him to stay away from his children. “I don’t think you recovered from Rachel’s death,” Royal says, which really angers Chas, who runs out of the closet.
Chapter 5. We see Royal and Ethel walking around a pond in the park. She asks how he’s doing and he tells her he’s having a ball, “loving every minute with this damn crew.” Ethel smirks as Royal thanks her for raising their children. “Why didn’t you give a damn about us, Royal?” Ethel asks him. He apologizes for his bad parenting, and compliments her on what a good mother she is. In spite of herself, Ethel is charmed, and wears a bemused smile. When Royal asks about her love life, Ethel tells him, “None of your business.” Nearby, Henry watches the ex-couple from behind a tree.
That night, as they leave the house, Henry asks Ethel to tell Royal about their courtship. “I don’t think the timing’s right,” Ethel says, to which Henry responds, “Well I’d agree if I really thought he was going to die in six weeks, but I don’t.” Ethel is surprised and simply says, “I hope you’re right,” before changing her mind about going out to dinner with Henry. She goes back into the house. Pagoda is standing nearby, listening to entire interaction.
Later, in the toy closet, Pagoda tells Royal what happened between Henry and Ethel. “Great, got the sucker on the ropes,” says Royal. The next day, we see Royal smoking a cigarette in the kitchen, when Henry walks in. Royal asks him if he’s trying to steal Ethel. “I beg your pardon?” asks Henry, to which Royal says, “You heard me Coltrane.” Henry is not amused with the reference to his race, but Royal continues to bait him, threatening that he will start talking “jive.” The men erupt in a screaming match, with Royal telling Henry to get out of his house. Ethel interrupts them and asks whats going on, and the men immediately stop fighting.
In the next room, Henry takes a bottle of Royal’s medication and examines it, then goes to use the phone to investigate about Dr. McClure. He then goes up to Pagoda’s room and asks Pagoda how much Royal is paying him.
In Royal’s room, Royal and Margot watch Eli being interviewed on television. He is talking about his relationship to the Tenenbaum family, and the fact that they have fallen on hard times, and Royal wants to turn it off. Richie comes in with a bandage on his hand, but won’t tell Margot what happened. When Henry calls a family meeting, Royal asks him what’s going on, to which Henry replies, “You’ll see.” On television, the interviewer asks Eli about the failure of his last novel and Eli walks out.
Analysis
The cracks in Royal’s plot become clearer to the audience in this section of the film, and we begin to see that his claims to terminal disease are a lie. He convinces his most impressionable and sentimental child to bring him into the Tenenbaum residence and sets up a mini hospital bed with the help of Pagoda. The main clue that Royal is making up his own illness is the mysterious doctor that he calls in, Dr. McClure. We recognize him as one of the men who works at the hotel that Royal has recently been kicked out of, and his vague medical diagnosis is only further testament to the fact that he’s an impostor.
Having insinuated himself into his old family home, Royal begins to try to insinuate himself into the lives of his old family members, to little effect. He tells Ethel that she looks nice, hoping to win back her affection from Henry, and while she is momentarily flattered, she ultimately shrugs it off as an empty compliment. His attempts to get closer to Chas are consistently met with malice. When he tries to meddle in Margot’s romantic business, she pushes him away, insisting that he knows nothing about her love life. All Royal’s attempts to reconnect with his family are thwarted.
It is not only their neglectful and selfish patriarch that makes the Tenenbaum children so dysfunctional in adulthood; it is also their fallen glory as former child prodigies. Chas, a once-brilliant businessman, has been rendered chronically fearful and anxious by the death of his wife, unable to deal with the kind of crisis that good business planning can't prevent. Richie, a tennis pro, self-sabotaged in a crucial match years ago. Margot hasn’t written a play in 7 years, in spite of her success as a playwright, and when Royal mentions that she used to be a genius, she fires back, “No I didn’t.” Each of the Tenenbaum children are contending with their fall from fame, from peaking too early, which makes their reconnection with a wayward father all the more difficult.
Even though his children refuse to accept their father back into their lives, Royal begins to make some headway with his ex-wife and with his impressionable and fun-starved grandchildren, Uzi and Ari. To counteract the fearful and neurotic parenting of Chas, Royal decides to teach the boys to live recklessly. In a humorous montage, we see Royal going perhaps a bit too far with his lesson, leading them into bizarre dangers, taking them to dogfights, and teaching them to steal and vandalize. Even so, he is depicted as a good grandfather, making his grandsons smile gleefully as they learn to live on the edge. Similarly with Ethel, Royal has an infectious kind of charm, in spite of his less savory qualities. His ex-wife cannot help but smile as Royal apologizes for not being more present in their lives and extols her virtues as a mother.
The film examines failure and disappointment in many different ways. At the center of the story is Royal and his failure as a patriarch and husband. He is a man who knows how to enjoy life in his own twisted way, but he doesn’t know how to care for the people he loves. In fact, he must concoct a fiction in order to get his family to pay attention to him, which only highlights his ultimate failure as a father. Additionally, the film examines the relative failure of the Tenenbaum family as a whole, their obscurity and the fact that the three children are no longer the success stories they promised to be. The theme of failure is highlighted in the television interview with Eli, in which he remarks upon the Tenenbaums and then walks out when the interviewer wants to talk about the failure of his recent novel. None of the characters are quite able to admit to their failings.
