“Who’s to Say?”: The Role of Pets in Wes Anderson’s Films

Abstract

Film scholars and cinephiles alike have commonly identified in Wes Anderson’s films the recurrent theme of isolation and the need to reconnect to community (particularly family). Devin Orgeron has argued that, beyond being about childhood, Anderson’s films are also “about family and the need, in the face of familial abandonment, to create communities in its place” (42). Many characters in his films live in close proximity and interact with one another on a daily basis, yet they are relationally stranded and distant from one another; each film’s narrative, or diegesis, is concerned with what Jesse Fox Mayshark describes as “character arcs of maturity” characters must traverse to reach “a form of redemption within [their] peer group” (136, 177). Characters in Anderson’s films experience both a desire to reconnect to those around them and revulsion when those attempts are foiled by other continuing irresponsible behavior. Generally the reunion takes place but not without difficulties, for Anderson’s films resist cutting “emotional corners” (Jones 23–24).