Rushmore

Director: Wes Anderson

1998 / 93min / DCP

Extracurricular-mad but otherwise unpromising 15-year-old student Max Fisher (Jason Schwartzman) is too busy competing (or so he thinks) with sad sack industrialist Bill Murray for the affections of teacher Olivia Williams to survive “sudden death academic probation” in Anderson’s deeply funny, deeply melancholic—and very class-conscious—sophomore feature. A back-to-school perennial, all dressed up in prep school navy blue and the muted colors of north Texas autumn, positively thrumming with the upstart energy of British Invasion anthems. (“Anderson,” noted admirer Martin Scorsese, “has a fine sense of how music works against an image.”) An irresistible, disarmingly original, delicately wrought comic fable.

Distributor: Walt Disney Studios/20th Century

Part of The Leaves Are Falling