Set in a uniquely framed storybook
atmosphere, Wes Anderson’s newest film The Grand Budapest Hotel immerses
you in a truly enthusiastic caper. With quick shots of pictures, words, and
music, the director does not hesitate to introduce the audience to a new
universe of oddity. Imagination and quirk flood every frame along with a
star-studded set of familiar actors in peculiar mustaches and “get-ups”.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
is a stupendous concoction, adding a fresh perspective to the genre of a
thriller. However, there is not a significant connection to the characters, for
most seem to be one dimensional. Yet, this hardly matters, for the film has no
substantial pretense beyond propelling the audience forward through a vast
amount of comedic and exaggerated predicaments. This lens lightens the film’s
attitude and allows it to be a much more loose contraption of Wes Anderson’s,
unlike several of his other pieces.
The film is set in “Zubrowka”, a
fictional 1930s European nation that Anderson treats as a distinguished
landscape with an array of kingdoms, hotels, castles, and prisons. Antiquated
and compositional, Anderson allows his creation to run wild. The central
character, Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), is a witty concierge at the Grand
Budapest Hotel, speaking in quick blunt sentences while navigating us through
his life as a conman. The Grand Budapest Hotel is the story of a man
with a yearning for more. Fiennes, with his magnificent and earnest
performance, wants us to “like” Gustave beyond all of his unlawful wrong
doings, and he succeeds. Fiennes is able to astound the audience with his
portrayal of a crook compelled by worldly appetite, and by his own abnormal
“code of honor”.
The tale however is told through the
eyes of Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), an orphan-immigrant Lobby Boy who
becomes Gustave's hotel protégé. The older Zero, played by F. Murray Abraham,
retells the events of which we are watching to modern day concierge of the
hotel played by Jude Law. The plot of the film revolves around a single event,
in essence. One of Gustave's guests and hidden lovers, the 84-year-old countess
Madame D (Tilda Swinton), passes, and there's a problematic scenario
surrounding the will. She has left Gustave a priceless painting called Boy
With Apple, but her relatives, actors Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe are
both “so ruthless” that Gustave must to steal it.
Set in the beginning of a grand War
(perhaps alluding to World War II), The Grand Budapest Hotel zips
through gunfire, prison escapes, and even toboggan races - all pieced together
with an outstanding score by Alexandre Desplat. Through the all of the unrealistic
incidents and fast dialogue, Wes Anderson is able to say so much with
such little substance and direct communication.
A-
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