A reader writes:
I would have to respectfully disagree with your reader who categorized the attempted suicide scene in The Royal Tenenbaums as "romanticizing and glamorizing" the act. As a person who has survived an unsuccessful suicide attempt, and someone who has also lost a loved one to the act, I've always found that scene to be profoundly sobering and unflinchingly honest. Stylized, yes, much like everything else Wes Anderson's done; however, it perfectly captures that woozy, almost dream-like state I recall myself being in before I tried to take my life.
I have a hard time watching it because of this, and depictions of suicide generally aren't emotional triggers for me, despite my past experiences. It's the obvious emotional nadir of the film, and nothing in the scene is sensationalistic or played for anything else than genuine pathos. Suicide doesn't seem like something painless or glorified in it, but rather searingly ugly and violent. It feels like a fever dream, or a particularly lucid nightmare. No other depiction of suicide in art strikes so close to home for me, save for Leonard Cohen's "Dress Rehearsal Rag" and pretty much Joy Division's entire oeuvre (Closer in particular).
Another also disagrees:
As someone who has suffered from terrible and regularly suicidal depression for his entire adult life, that scene in The Royal Tenenbaums seems like an anti-suicide plea to me. Not to mention doesn't it seem that …
It's not private because it can't be contained. It's not the end of suffering; it's the proliferation of suffering. It's not solemn, because most, if not all of the time, it's a mad scramble.
… is EXACTLY how the movie plays out the suicide attempt? Yeah, things end up happier because he fails, but the implicit crushing of everyone close to him should it have succeeded is very obviously there to me.
Another:
Should we shy away from depicting anything that carries the kind of weight that suicide does in the real world? What about depicting murder, rape, war, bigotry? All these things, including suicide, have a long history of being represented, yes, as "art," but also as comedy, propaganda, satire, and pure entertainment. I think it would truly be a shame if our culture avoided engaging with the horrible and tragic aspects of humanity, even if those products do not do justice to the harsh reality. The fact is, the scene from The Royal Tenenbaums makes perfect sense in the context of THAT movie and THAT character, and should not be seen as a surrogate for any real-world circumstance.
The Dish 