My friend, Daniel, and I went to an advance screening (if you don't live within the vicinity of the four theaters that it opened at last week) of The Grand Budapest Hotel last night. I now have unique foreknowledge and therefore will distribute it to all of you in order to grow my #brand.
As many reviewers have already noted, The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most mannered Wes Anderson movie to date. Being both a longtime footsoldier in Anderson's toy army and bound by pride of old alma mater I was naturally delighted by this. I know that Anderson's meticulous staging can grate on people, but I've never found it anything but charming.
The fantastical set decoration also makes sense within the narrative, as the bulk of it takes place as a story within a story within a story - each level with progressively less real-world verisimilitude. The movie is a meditation on old-world romantic elegance, and the way it was irrevocably extinguished by the rise of fascism. This progression from resplendent to ordinary to sad is ably communicated by the presence or absence of trademark Anderson whimsy on screen.
The story centers around M. Gustave, the dandyish and efficient concierge at the opulent Grand Budapest Hotel, and his lobby boy, Zero, as they try to run the hotel and simultaneously elude a pack of nefarious heirs, headed by Dimitri (who tips his villainous hand immediately with his facial hair choices).
It's easily the most plot heavy live-action Anderson film since Bottle Rocket. It eschews the now expected "characters wander around chasing a macguffin while discovering themselves" vein of storytelling and instead embraces a Fantastic Mr. Fox-esque caper atmosphere. It's Anderson's most violent film - there are shootings and stabbings and the requisite foul end of a pet - with these occasional forays into the grotesque reminding the viewer that bad things are coming everyone's way in the 1930s. There's even a chase sequence (albeit one rendered in stop-motion style).
Zero gets a romantic subplot with the local pastry chef, Agatha, but it's M. Gustave's movie and Ralph Fiennes (whose name I'm still not sure how to pronounce) steals the show.
Fiennes as Gustave is effortlessly charming, but beneath his posh exterior there is an undercurrent of world-weariness, a weariness that often manifests itself in the form of one of my favorite jokes - the artful and judicious deployment of unexpected profanity. He's an atypical Anderson character in that he's entirely confident in who he is, which helps the plot maintain its brisk pace. He's also the bravest character since the Bond Company Stooge in The Life Aquatic.
The simmering undercurrent of violence and melancholy comes to a head at the end of the film and lends a real world honesty that's somewhat unexpected in an Anderson film. Rather than using a heightened reality to explore emotional truths, in Grand Budapest Hotel, the sweetness of his fictional country of Zubrowka is undercut by the brutal truth of history.
Go see the movie, it is good.
Kyle's Wes Anderson Film Rankings
1) The Royal Tenenbaums
2) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
3) Rushmore
4) Bottle Rocket
5) The Darjeeling Limited
Unranked
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Moonrise Kingdom
The Grand Budapest Hotel
(I find my opinion on Anderson films varies with each viewing, and I've only seen the unranked movies once. I feel I can't provide an accurate assessment until I see them again.)
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