I've come to find that this is a *decent* movie--which is something I have to grit through my teeth in order to say, because I really dislike Wes Anderson for the most part otherwise. Some of the dialogue has held up really well, and the movie was trying to do its own unique little thing. Gotta give Anderson that much.
But yes--Max is a creep, and the ultimate failing of the film (echoed in the similarly precious and cutesy Juno 10 years later--a film that owes a LOT to Anderson and Rushmore specifically--the parallels between Juno and the Jason Bateman character, and Max and the Olivia Williams character, should be obvious) is this: I don't believe that Max is really a much better person by the time the credits roll. He's still rather creepy, really. Looking back over the entire movie, the only sequence in which I actually liked him at all was when the movie was listing all of his activities.
See, I *know* the film is trying to deal with awkward adolescent emotions--an obviously very bright and enthusiastic young man, who is nonetheless doing it all wrong--and that has real world echoes, even if most of us don't get to go to a school like Rushmore. It is not entirely unrealistic that Max would whine "Oh my GAWD, I wrote a HIT PLAY!" and make annoyingly smug cracks at people that only he would actually find funny (that's the cleverest thing about the writing) or try to tell the school bully that he got a hand job from that other kid's mother to save face, or hit on a teacher in the creepy manner that he does. It's fair that the movie did all of those things.
But....looking back over the last 20 minutes of the film or so, I see no evidence that he's being anything other than the same old Max. He wrote....another hit play, which is probably as precociously cutesy and trite as his earlier one, he shot Magnus with an air rifle (and he's a less creepy person than Magnus really--and the movie deliberately makes it so that he STARTED the fist fight, with a kid who could obviously demolish him!) in an act of childish revenge, and the movie has to toss a cheap new romantic interest for him that barely registers.
This problem was even worse in Juno, where, in spite of having it explained to me several times, I still find it almost monstrously offensive that Juno makes it a point to not even look at the child she just gave birth to. Oh yeah, that sure is a sign that she's maturing.
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