My choice for best coming-of-age movie of all time, comedic or otherwise. Director Wes Anderson, working from a script he wrote with Owen Wilson, mastered his unique craft with just his second film, a heartfelt and hilarious story about a bizarrely precocious prep-school student named Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman, painfully, perfectly awkward) who learns to act his age. Anderson’s impeccable frames have never been better detailed, especially in the montage of the school clubs Max presides over (such as the Rushmore Beekeepers). Olivia Williams, as the first-grade teacher Max unwisely woos, is a sweet foil to Schwartzman, while Bill Murray, as Max’s millionaire, self-loathing mentor, gives the performance of his career (and thereby launched himself a second one). I find all of Anderson’s films to be genuine, but this remains his most moving, authentic piece of work. To paraphrase Murray’s Herman Blume, Rushmore is my Rushmore.
