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Kindly Miss Cross, warmly executed by Olivia Williams, is immediately forthcoming with the lovesick lad. It won't work, she carefully notes. But they can still be friends. The gentle letdown passes right over stubborn Max's head. Instead, learning that the object of his affection graduated from Harvard, the lacklustre student tries to impress her by suggesting a coincidence: "I'm applying to Oxford and the Sorbonne, but Harvard is my safety school."
As Rushmore delightfully demonstrates, the bespectacled, vertically challenged Max never does anything in a garden-variety way. He is a player in training. Always attired in monogrammed blazer and old school tie, the campus gadfly is involved in practically everything. Captain of the fencing team, president of the debate club and a member of a dozen or so other organisations, let's not forget that the precocious preppie is also currently enjoying a term as president of Rushmore's Beekeepers Club.
In addition, when he's not involved in any number of personal and public crusades, like making sure the school doesn't drop Latin from the curriculum to make room for Japanese, Max is leading The Max Fischer Players. Rushmore's resident drama group, the theatre company specialises in putting on the socially conscious plays its muckraking namesake writes. Subtlety, either through his stage productions or in his relationships, is not among Max's fortes.
The only thing Mr. Extracurricular doesn't seem to be concerned with is his grades. As a result, when first we make the diminutive dynamo's acquaintance, he has just been put on sudden death probation. Setting about to avoid this latest threat to his cherished lifestyle - he contemplates every angle but studying - Max is simultaneously approaching a watershed, a coming-of-age. Aside from being smitten by the sweet young widow now teaching at the posh private school, he attends and is moved by a speech given by steel mogul Herman Blume (Bill Murray); a self-made millionaire the school is wooing to become a benefactor. Max compliments the lonely magnate on his talk and a mutual admiration society instantly develops between the two.
The young man sees in Herman a self-actualised captain of industry, someone who made it despite his meagre roots. You see, Max is a Great Gatsby of the teen set; he tells everyone his father is a neurosurgeon. The truth is, Dad (endearingly portrayed by Seymour Cassel) is a barber. And Max is on scholarship thanks to the persuasive efforts of an adoring Mom who died when he was seven. Revolted to no end by his twin moronic boys in attendance at Rushmore, Blume sees in spunky Max the enchanting possibilities of youth, and the kind of son he wishes he had.
Things might have been just fine from this point on, if only Max hadn't asked his new-found friend for a favour -- to serve as a go-between. You guessed it. Herman is struck with one of Cupid's arrows whilst delivering a missive to Rosemary Cross, and a new twist on the old love triangle is shaped. Once Max is hip to the skinny, an oddly engaging cloud forms over director Wes Anderson's bizarrely imaginative lens, announcing that the already quirky comedy will now assume a humorously dark personality. Feeling betrayed, Max swears revenge against this latter day Benedict Arnold. He attacks with full force.
Now, one would think that Mr. Blume, played with deadpan excellence by Bill Murray, might be too ashamed to respond in kind. Wrong. The tycoon retaliates with insane verve, answering Max's obvious declaration of war. But that improbability is what makes this highly sensitive and equally unpredictable film so thoroughly enjoyable. Max almost always acts on his passions. Even his detractors admire him for it.
Though Rushmore merrily surfs along the edge of black comedy, there is a consistent, open-arms conviviality to its idiosyncratic doings. The more tenebrous notions are cynical, but never beyond reprieve. And in that sense, it reminds of the quaintly hopeful Harold and Maude. Indeed, filmmaker Anderson pays homage to that 1972 cult classic, which features a soundtrack by Cat Stevens, capturing here the appropriate mood by also using one of Mr. Stevens' songs. In fact, the director displays a highly satisfying knack for matching most of his scenes with just the right pop tune. After all, where else will you find John Lennon's "Oh Yoko!" seamlessly integrated into the mirthful mix without missing a beat, let alone raising an eyebrow?
As crazy and volatile as things might get, director Anderson ultimately proffers the Pollyanna notion that everyone has some good in them. And some, like Max Fischer, even have a little great in them. Rushmore is a monument to that happy thought.
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