Warning, this review discusses plot, so it may be best to see the film before reading this article.
Rushmore is a wonderfully crafted piece of film. Each part of the movie adds to its overall feel and aids in the depiction of the boy who thinks he's a man and the man who acts like a boy.
We start with Max Fischer, a coat-and-tie wearing boy in a world of blue shirts. At first he seems to be smarter than the average, quick to make judgments and eager to introduce himself - he networks. Then we learn the other half of the story from the dean, "he's the worst student we've got." Max doesn't operate like other students, he operates like an adult. When the dean threatens to expel Max, he doesn't vow to get better grades, he doesn't try harder in his studies - rather he decides he needs to "pull strings in the administration." Max always has something brewing, he seems to believe he is beyond the rules.
Almost everything he does is advanced as well. He carries himself with a proud air, like someone who's got a bit more than anyone else. We see this in the library, where he pursues the book-vandal in some sort of misplaced sense of justice. He also speaks like an adult, to adults and other students alike. As a result, while he is a failure at all things childish, but is able to run a successful company of players and befriend a millionaire.
Enter Herman Blume. A rumpled, clearly unhappy man, Blume reeks of loneliness in every facial expression and activity. His cannonball into the pool is the perfect depiction of his isolation. Once underwater, he is alone. His boy, his scrawny child who never says anything, swims away from him in fear, leaving him stranded and separated like The Graduate's Benjamin. It seems as though Herman is what Benjamin might have become if he had gone into plastics (okay, metals).
The evolution of these two characters in their fight over Ms. Cross is a misplaced Oedipal battle. Max's own father is unable to be anything but a mother to Max, a comforter but hardly an authority figure. As Max discovers that Olivia really doesn't care for him in a romantic way, he is crushed. We see that his mature actions hold only while he is feeling confident, whenever he is at his weakest, his child side comes streaking into the open. Max's tears when he is being expelled by the dean are clearly those of a child's. Similarly, his outburst at the restaurant, his shouting that Ms. Cross hurt his feelings, that the night was very important are the childish tantrums that can be expected from an adolescent Max's age.
As Herman begins to date Ms. Cross, Max feels betrayed and squares off against Herman. The battle between the two is a physical manifestation of their spiritual battle for supremacy. Finally, Max and Herman each hit rock bottom. For Max, that bottom comes when he drops out of school and resigns himself to failure, to his father's life. For Herman, it comes from complete loss of motivation for anything, and his loss of Ms. Cross.
It is when they resolve their differences that the story turns around. Herman and Max rise up together, finding comfort in each other and confidence in themselves. Max gets back to being a kid, but doesn't shed the adult confidence that makes him an adult too. He starts the kite flyers club - a child's activity if ever there was one - and writes another play. It is as his life returns to normal that he seems to move into acceptance of his age. His dating Margaret Yang is a clear acceptance of his age, and his place, but not an abandonment of what he was. At the same time, Herman has clearly changed and his bond with Ms. Cross seems to be burgeoning again at the end of the film.
Rushmore is both the story of the emotional maturing of a young man and of the redemption of a doomed man. What makes the film so great is that it tells its story through vibrant, funny characters and fabulous art direction. The look and feel of this movie seems almost real, but not quite. The fantastic nature of the plays and the side characters in the film make the movie a fantasy, yet at the same time, there is nothing unbelievable about it.
The sliding curtains throughout the film lead us to another possibility as well: Rushmore might just be the most recent of Max's hit plays, all too elaborate, all too real.
My only question is where Max "resigns himself to failure, to his father's life." I think I remember that his father was some kind of tradesman or something? He was blue-collar, but not a failure. Or do you think the film is making a social statement about that kind of work being a failure in life (or tongue-in-cheek saying that that's not failure). Or, another possibility is that I'm remembering that part wrong. Anyway, very interesting.
You bring up a good point, but allow me to clarify. When Max resigns himself to failure, I don't believe that the movie's intent is to make a statement about barbers as failures, but rather about Max's own misconceptions regarding the world and what is important. You will remember that Max always presents a sophisticated and almost arrogant side of himself to the world. He is embarrassed that his father is a barber and does not introduce him to people, claiming that his father, a brain surgeon, is always on-call.
The beauty of the film is that Max comes to realize, by the end, that his father's occupation is nothing to be ashamed of. His decision to introduce his father to Mr. Blume is one of the most potent signifiers of Max's growth. Thus, I think that the undervaluing of his father's profession in the film is shown only through Max's eyes, and not as a condemnation of the proletariat.