A Look Into the Past: Rushmore

Sometimes movies that received little box office success are actually very good movies. However, in some cases, they may have received little success for a good reason. Rushmore is not one of those poor movies.
Rushmore follows the life of Max Fischer, an eccentric teenager and his friendship with a depressed, rich industrialist, Herman Blume. Max attends the private high school of Rushmore, where he is called the ‘worst student’. This is because Max spends too much time on his extracurriclar activities, which he does by the masses and not enough time studying. Throughout the movie, he falls in love with a widowed, elementary teacher named, Rosemary Cross. Max tries to court the much older Rosemary. At first she tolerates his advances, but becomes increasingly distressed when he goes to far to push their relationship. Rosemary ceases to see Max, it is during this time when Herman, Max’s industrial friend. makes his advances on Rosemary. She accepts Herman and they begin to see each other socially. Herman, however, is married, but pursues this relationship because he is no longer happy in his own life. His wife is cheating and his boys are completely disobediant. When Max finds out about this, he declares an all out war on Blume. Secretly this makes Blume happy, as it finally gives him purpose. Also during this time, Max is kicked out of Rushmore for his low marks. The war between the two friends finally comes to an end, when Max finds out Rosemary left Blume. Max, who is now at a regular highschool, continues to pursue Rosemary one last time and is flat out rejected. Max then begins to realize he is ruining his life for love, as he had stopped his extracuriculars and begins writing a new play. He invites both Blume and Rosemary to it. The play is a complete success and afterwards everyone goes to a party. It is at this time, that Rosemary sees Max, and finally realizes she loves him, but can’t commit, because she still loves her dead husband.


I felt, it was necessary to recapitulate the storyline as it is truly the highlight of this film. Movies today are in a state of fluxuation, some can be very good, whereas many are completely ridiculous. The genre of comedy, in today’s age, is in a state of emergency. The movies go for cheap laughs, based mainly on sex, or self mutilation. What makes this movie wonderful is it’s choice of humour. It does not rely completely on this, but has a wide variety of different gags. Ranging from slapstick to verbal and even ranging to irony. This movie is very well rounded and just shows me how far the movie industry has sunk.
Lets look at the mechanics of this movie. This film had a budget of twenty million dollars, which in today’s terms is completely miniscuel, however, the producers of this film made it go a long way. The first thing we should look at is the setting. The movie was filmed entirely in Texas in the fall. Texas was a great choice of setting because it can capture both the high end and the low end, which was captured in the different high schools Max attended. Everything in this film felt authentic and the set made it come to life.
Costumes were something that were very important in this film. Max blooms outfit, which is completely perfect in everyway, shows what his personality is like. Clothing tells what a person is like and this movie shows this. When Blume is very run down, his clothes are very grunge like and his hair is a mess.
Another important thing is the filmography. It is done very well. The shots are all completely planned out, down to the exact place each prop should go. This is shown very well in the first scene when Max ‘solves’ the impossible math question. Nothing is out of foucs and everything is done in proportion. Slow motion is used at the appropriate times, like when Max is leaving the hotel after putting Bee’s in Blumes hotel room. Something else of note is the appropriate needle drops that are done everytime they want a certain feeling. This is done well, again, in the scene at the hotel.

Lets look at the acting of this movie. Bill Murray does an amazing job of playing Blume. He pulls across the mid-life crisis very well. The best part of his acting is when he slightly smiles when he realizes him and Max are at war. Jason Schwartman, who played Max, does a phenominal job of pulling across the ‘imperfect perfectionist’. His hand gestures and confident voice make him pull across the character very well. All the other actors did well also.
The best thing about this movie is how it captures us. We feel for Max, he lost his mother when he was young and we want him to suceed in fixing his marks. We get attached to this movie in general, we feel sorrow when he insults his fathers profession and we feel awkward in the scenes between Rosemary and Max. The characters are developed so well in this film that you could almost believe they are real.
There were two themes in this film, one was underage love and one was the drive to suceed. They were both developed very well. We feel resoultion in this movie, as we know that Max realizes that what he does, he does well and is sucessful in his life. We also know that Rosemary realizes that she loves Max, whether it is right or not.
This film was done very well and should be watched by all. It comes as no surprise that this film is deeply followed by a select amount of viewers. This movie deserves it’s 5 out of 5 stars.