The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (R) - Review

"European Borsch-belt Literature at it's best"

The Concierge and Bellboy of a famous Eastern European Luxury Hotel are dragged into a murder mystery involving an elderly woman, a priceless painting and her blood thirsty heirs in director Wes Anderson's darkest film since The Life Aquatic.

Told in three differing Aspect Ratios in Three differing time periods, The Grand Budapest slavishly quirks its way through a fictional 1930s, where countries are almost under the heel of a bordering fascist state and hotel service is in it's decline.  The hotel itself is a marvel of Anderson-type design, it feels like a living breathing workplace set in two artistically differing time periods, the camera postcards the architecture and rooms and funky small elevators with their funky small details divinely.  The cast, large at it is, are merely pawns for Anderson's written verse.  Cartoonish escapades and well worn tropes are laid all the more bare by his play-like stilted approach to the characters, and yet this is true of all his movies and is up to the movie goer to forgive or forget.

The mystery is the main focus in GBH, unlike other Wes films where emotion and motivation are the main driving cinematic forces.  It's an farcical whodunnit starring Ralph Fiennes as the Hotel's flowery Concierge who has taken a newly hired Lobby Boy under his wing (eventually make him his heir and owner of said hotel).  Gustave inherits the priceless painting "Boy With Apple" from a love struck elderly widow, which the greedy Taxis family will get back by any dastardly means possible (lead by arch nemesis Adrien Brody and his vicious motorcycle henchman Joplin who is played adroitly by Willem Dafoe.)  Touching on young love, prison breakouts and hegglety pegglety mystery movie shenanigans, the Grand Budapest Hotel is as charming as its name sake appears to be even with (nay, due to) its obvious faults.

Though lacking in true emotional punch and the modern folk rock soundtracks of his past films, and lacking any new quirks or inventivness to Anderson's camera craft, the cleverness of the writing and staging of The Grand Budapest still make it a great watch.  Strange how a film so burrowed into Eastern European lifestyle and steeped in Anderson's blend of camera and character tricks can come across as Anderson's most mainstream to American audiences.  The device of the fan reading the Author's book of the remembrances of Zero Mustafa (F. Murray Abraham) about his years serving under the Concierge M. Gustave H. is engrossing, the set design his deepest yet, the plot twists and turns are magical and if nothing remind one of old classic Hollywood silent era adventures (this is due in no small part to the old fashioned kooky miniature effects work and Academy 1:33 aspect ratio that permeates the films recollections).

However, is it Anderson's most ambitious film?  No, but it does impress.  Is it his funniest?  No, but it is never without a chuckle or smile for its audience.  Is it his most artistic or groundbreaking?  No, it is strictly from his mold and yet who else has built such a trademark?  Is it his best?  No, yet as unnattached and straightforward as the material reads on screen, his humor and quirky sensibilities form a kind of middle ground more accessible to those still not in love with the Wes Anderson mystique.

7.5 Overly Large Perfume Bottles out of 10 (GOOD)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Moonrise Kingdom (PG-13)

"The Magic Kingdom"

Wes Anderson's quirky little films haven't come a long way, and thank goodness for that. If you haven't enjoyed his previous entries (Rushmore, Royal Tennebaums), then perhaps this isn't for you, but if you have then Moonrise is a joyful nostalgic about being a child in the 1960s, told around a love story between two kids who feel socially outcast. Call it Sid & Nancy

Jr. or Romeo and Juliet for the younger set, except instead of all that angsty tragedy there is a large helping of whimsy with the blood and violence and sex all being real but fun-sized. Anderson's motifs this time around are more focused on younger childhood pursuits; Scouting, Preteen Fantasy Novels, Parental Divorce, playing Parcheesi and portable record players on a rainy day. We are led through the story by a Historical Narrator who is more likely to tell us the barometric pressure at any given moment than the characters motives and indeed it is the adults here who really shine. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed Bruce Willis this much, he plays a slightly sad small town Police chief with a quiet reserve that is remarkable. Ed Norton's prissy woodsman Scout Master frets and whimpers orders and Tilda Swinton nearly rides in on a broom as Social Services, here to take our hero Sam away to an Orphanage (or worse). Suzy is Sam's new girlfriend, and together they run off into the woods in the name of love while his scout mates and her parents (played wonderfully by Bill Murray and the its-so-great-to-see-her-again Frances Mcdormand) search hi and low on the island for the wayward youths. Kids will be kids though (mercurial and their tempers quick), Adults will be adults (depressed and trying to keep it all under control), so a great many adventures are had in a 1960s that never actually existed, except through the rose tinted glasses of our memories.

The melange of loving nostalgia, outdated gadgets and eccentric childhood attitudes that Wes Anderson has always been obsessed with are used to their greatest effect here, the mix feels genuine and true and the visuals like some beautiful old Bob Ross paintings come to life. It is a period piece of youthful imagination, told as only Wes can; a campfire story lovingly embellished by an adoring parent around a summer campfire, the embers slowly dying and the crickets beginning to sing as you lay in your sleeping bag wondering about what it'd be like to live on the moon.

It's simply one of his best films, and the best I've seen this year.

9.5 Campfire Hot Dogs out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)