Rushmore (1997)

No teen movie really feels like school to me. I have no idea why; maybe it’s the fantastical nature of these schools, or perhaps I just don’t relate to the characters. Weirldy enough, the school movie I resonate most with is the most fantastical movie about school there is. Rushmore is Wes Anderson’s second movie; being released in 1997, the movie itself is about Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), a 15-year-old boy at the prestigious private academy, Rushmore. Max isn’t some rich kid, though- his father is the local barber, and Max is on an academic scholarship. Max is very involved with his school, and has started numerous clubs, being president of most. The clubs themselves are often strange, starting normally from the yearbook, the list divulges into calligraphy club, bombardment club, and even beekeeping club. Max’s main, passion however, is his play writing. (The cornerstone of the movie being all the plays he writes and produces) Despite being super involved, the dean of Rushmore says that Max is the worst student. Max is virtually failing every class, and in the beginning of the movie is put on sudden death academic probation, risking losing his scholarship. Max isn’t too worried, however. He goes on to ignore this problem, and instead rubs elbows with a steel tycoon entrepreneur named Hurman Blume, (Bill Murray) and falls in love with an elementary school teacher named Rosemary Cross (Oliva Williams). The movie then follows his life as he makes friends with Blume, and tries to win over Ms. Cross, who is appropriately not into his advances.

Rushmore is a very heartfelt movie, with a soundtrack of British invasion music. Characterized by the most twee score you can think of, Wes Anderson’s attention to detail in the movie itself is a fun look at the life of this quirky, passionate boy attending a school that seems to not fit him. I will warn you now, this article contains spoilers for the movie. I recommend watching the movie first to get the best context for the film.

There are many themes to this movie I seek to delve into. Wes Anderson has a trend of themes in his movies, being family, grief, and passion. For the first theme, I will be talking about the references to family in Rushmore, as Max and Blume each suffer from familial issues. With Max’s mother dead and his father just being a barber, he feels like his family isn’t good enough for the prestigious Rushmore Academy. To fix this, he lies! Max tells his peers that his father is a neurosurgeon on call, and whenever his father tries to stick, around Max shoos him off to keep up the facade. The themes of familial strife become especially evident. During his first play, Max had an after party with Blume and Ms. Cross, which his father wants to attend. Instead, Max lies and says it’s closed to cast and crew, rushing his dad away before any of his friends meet him. Max’s dad is a gentle, empathetic man, who often cheers Max up when he gets a failing grade, noticing his stress in losing his Rushmore scholarship, reminding him that he’s more than the school he attends. It doesn’t take till the end of the movie until Max at his lowest point. He finds himself expelled from Rushmore, quits school altogether, and cuts his hair. After getting a pep talk from Blume, he realizes his life has meaning without Rushmore, and goes back to public school where he puts on another play, this time letting everyone meet his father. Max’s father, however, isn’t the best father. In my opinion, he doesn’t have a heavy hand with Max, and is a little loose with him, (in a manegerial sense) perhaps due to his mother’s passing. He wants to be gentle with Max, and actually bails him out of jail during his revenge plot, supporting him quitting school (which is where Blume comes in). Blume is a pseudo father figure to Max, and is the only person who scolds Max for his inappropriate behavior. He’s the heavy hand that Max needs in his life, giving it to him by holding him accountable for his actions.
The second example of the theme of family is in Hurman Blume himself. Blume is facing a failing family with hints of his wife having some kind of affair. At his twin son’s birthday party he notices his wife flirting with another man and to soothe the emotional pain jumps in the water washing away the bad feelings of his wife cheating on him. Which later leads to Blume having an affair with Ms. Cross, and Max doesn’t take well and has a long winded revenge plan towards Blume which includes telling his wife of the affair and getting him kicked out. Blume also has a tough time with his sons, he can’t control them and their disrespect towards his father, so he takes solace in Max. He views Max as the son he never had. Max is highly motivated, respectful, and charming, even after cutting his brake Blume forgives him and gives him a pep talk at the end of the movie. Max is everything Blume wanted in a son which is why he gets so close to him, even buying him a drink at dinner and asking Max to work for him at his steal plant. Blume heavily respects Max and even admires him asking him for advice multiple times through the movie.

The second theme I want to talk about is grief. Grief is shown in two characters Max and Ms. Cross. As I mentioned previously Max lost his mother at a young age. Max’s mother was an important figure in his life; she was the one that got him in Rushmore by showing the dean one of his plays he wrote and encouraged him every step of the way. At one of Max’s low points he visits her grave and talks to Blume about how he is in love with Ms. Cross before talking about how he was going to crush Blume with a tree. I believe that Max didn’t view Ms. Cross with a romantic kind of love, but a motherly kind of love. Ms. Cross is very mother-like to Max talking to him and helping him out when he lies about being hit with a car. In the movie after Max gets Ms. Cross fired because she had an affair with Blume they have an argument in which Ms. Cross asks Max what he thought would happen if they got together, if they would do anything sexual, and in that conversation Max reveals he never thought of Ms. Cross in a sexual way. Showing how he didn’t really imagine a traditional romantic relationship, but more of a close relationship, like a mother. Max’s jealousy in the movie is because he doesn’t want anyone to take away his mother figure again, clearly still grieving his mother in some way he doesn’t want to go through that trauma again. The end of the movie shows how Max has moved on from his mother’s death by showing him moving on from Ms. Cross. At the end he dedicates his play to his late mother and Ms. Cross’ late husband, he also gets a girlfriend showing how he doesn’t need this pseudo mother figure anymore in Ms. Cross and that he can be happy with a normal relationship (not a strange oedipal illegal relationship).
Ms. Cross in the movie is a widow, she lost her husband at a young age and came to teach at Rushmore in his memory, as he went there for his education. Her grief isn’t really explored, but it’s used as a plot point to get her and Max closer and to separate her and Blume. He figures out about her when he finds a book in the library scribbled with notes from her that she donated after her husband died, Max bonds with her over their dead loved ones, and even tries to one up him in death when he tries to build an aquarium in the school. He’s seen as an obstacle that Max has to pass in order to win her heart in the beginning, but when he comes to terms with not being able to pursue Ms. Cross he makes peace with this ghostly figure. Blume also tries to win her over but can’t, during a conversation with Max where he asks about Ms. Cross after awhile Blume says he hasn’t seen her in awhile because she was in love with a dead guy. She still hasn’t come to terms with her husband’s death and opening up to new relationships. This is also resolved in the end where she is dating a surgeon showing how she has resolved some of her grief.

The last theme of Rushmore which is also the most apparent in the movie is the theme of passion. Max’s biggest passion is Rushmore, all the clubs he runs, everything he does for the school, and his prized perfect attendance and punctuality pins that adorn his Rushmore sports coat. The motto of the movie is spoken by Max in a conversation with Blume he says “I guess you’ve just gotta find something you love to do and then… do it for the rest of your life. For me, it’s going to Rushmore.” When you’re passionate about something all you really have to do is do it, if you’re not passionate about something then you just don’t do it. It’s heavily shown in how much Max does for the school. And this quote rings across the whole movie, when Max confronts Blume about having an affair with Ms.Cross Blume says that Ms.Cross is his Rushmore, saying that she is his passion and all he wants for the rest of his life, which makes Max respond with a similar sentiment. Blume tries to win back Ms.Cross, with the approval of Max, by building the aquarium that Max tried to build in the beginning of the movie, sinking most of his wealth into building the impressive feat, which doesn’t win her back in the end showing sometimes your passions can’t be felt out.
One reason for this passion about Rushmore is because of Max’s mother, Max’s mother convinced the dean to let Max in on a scholarship and he could see his overachieving in Rushmore as a way to stay connected with his late mother, when he gets expelled he loses a part of his mother, what she worked hard to get for him. At the end of the movie with Max expelled from Rushmore he’s lost, passionless, there’s nothing left for him so he becomes depressed quitting school all together and cuts hair at his father’s barber shop. When he accepts he was expelled from Rushmore it’s also another sign of him accepting his mother’s death. He even puts on another play about Vietnam, which Blume was in, to show how he has gotten his passion back and he can find passion outside of Rushmore.

Those are the three major themes of Rushmore. The one that’s the most important is the theme of passion, without passion you would be a person floating around doing nothing, sticking to the easiest life plan, which Max feels in the movie when he gets expelled and starts to cut hair at his father’s barber shop saying he is the son of a barber. I deeply relate with Max, not because I’m in a million different clubs and failing school, but because I deeply relate with his passion, how he found something he loved and kept doing it. I like to think of my writing as my passion, but that could change like how it changed for Max in the movie. I also relate to his more awful parts like jealousy, but I’ve yet to cut someone’s car breaks. There’s so much more to this movie than I talked about in this short essay. I really recommend watching it; as I rewatch clips I realize how much dialogue and subtle scenes I couldn’t talk about. It’s one of my favorites, and again, I feel like it’s the most relatable teen movie I’ve seen.