I have dreamt that it might be possible to raise my child in the woods, off the grid, to spare her this modern cultural hellscape filled with guns and Trumps. The fictitious Cash family, headed by Ben (Viggo Mortensen), gives us a taste of that life—good or bad, depending on how attached you are to warm showers and iPhones—in the sweet, funny, and overall wonderful Captain Fantastic.
One of the first things we see is a gory scene in which Ben’s teenage son catches and slaughters a deer. Ben then smears blood on his son’s face and proclaims him a man. The five other children ferally whoop and jump around in an idyllic Ewok village of a home nestled in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest. Then they read advanced literature and sing songs around a campfire. (Please keep reading. This movie really isn’t as obnoxious as I’m making it sound.)