The Royal Tenenbaums” is the movie of the year. Accept that.

It’s unlikely to win many Oscars, certainly, or even get unanimous acclaim. But no other movie released in 2001 has the wit, the depth of emotion and the connection to the great realities of life that Wes Anderson’s third and best movie embodies.

More than anything else, “Tenenbaums” is a love letter to New York City, or at least to a literary imagination of the early 1960s’ New York cultural elite. Not that such a society ever existed, but J.D. Salinger, Orson Welles and many others painted this New York as a place where everyone lives in a multilevel brownstone at 111 Archer Avenue, everyone has a book, and everyone, but everyone, is famous and rich.

It is in a hybrid of that world and the present that Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson tell their tale. Their story is of a negligent selfish man, Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), and his three talented children: financial whiz Chas (Ben Stiller), playwright Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) and tennis star Richie (Luke Wilson). Also in the incredible cast are Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston and Bill Murray, not to mention the fact that Alec Baldwin narrates throughout.

All of the Tenenbaum children have fallen on hard times: Chas’s wife Rachel died in a plane crash, Margot has not completed a play in years and Richie is in seclusion aboard an oceanliner named the Cote D’Ivoire. They all move back home upon hearing of Royal’s alledged fatal illness, and old scars are exposed and new ones made as they escape to their past.

As “Rushmore,” Anderson’s previous film, used plays to advance his story and even used curtains to separate the months of the tale, “Tenenbaums” is a movie of books, whether it be the title novel, ostensibly written by Royal, or a collection of Margot’s plays. All old things are celebrated: Chas keeps an Apple II in his bedroom right next to his new Power Mac G4, and everyone in the movie listens to records, not CDs.

The family’s story is further filtered through the musical score of Mark Mothersbaugh, who as always has found the perfect song for every scene. Margot is captured in two songs by Nico. Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” is used to great effect, both enhancing and underscoring the action.

While frequently hilarious, there is an undercurrent of loss, despair and death throughout “Tenenbaums,” making it leaps and bounds darker than either of Anderson’s other films, “Rushmore” and 1996’s “Bottle Rocket”. Perhaps the reason for this darkness has less to do with theme than with the characters. Anderson and Wilson have “grown-ups,” both figuratively and literally, as their stars for the very first time.

This is typified by Hackman, who behaves in a childish manner while at the same time confronting and trying to fix the problems of his children. His performance is flashy and impressive. It makes you remember that he can be an outstanding actor when he feels like it.

The two biggest surprises of the movie are definitely Luke Wilson and Paltrow. As the younger Tenenbaum siblings, they bring a quality of unconscious desire and understanding to the story, whether it is in their facial expressions or their actual conversations. Paltrow has rarely accomplished so much in a movie with so few words, and Wilson’s performance is agony and ecstacy all at once. The sadness and weight in his eyes will stay with you long after the credits roll. His is a career-making role and performance.

Ten years from now, “Kate and Leopold” will be forgotten. Margot and Richie will be remembered, and so will the unsettlingly magnificent film that spawned them. nyou