Movie: The French Dispatch
Theatre: Village Rivoli Camberwell
Stars: 4
I'm biased. I love Wes Anderson films, and I've been waiting for this for an age. Pastiche, stylised comedy and violence, strange characters, tableaus - you name it, you know it's going to be in there - and The French Dispatch had them all. It's what I call titter-funny, where you sit there and snort at the absurdity and cleverness of the whole thing. It's not belly laugh funny, but the snort in your coffee and smirk into your choc top sort of funny.
If you liked The Grand Budepest Hotel, you'll like this - though I think The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson at his finest.
This movie is a love song to the ever-disappearing print media, and if you keep this in mind, you're find. What lets this film down a bit is that it's a trio of tales, rather than one full story. The overlay of story is that the French Dispatch is supposedly a weekly magazine, published out of Ennui in France, for the Liberty Kansas Evening News. Party travelog, part food pages, part society rag, it's a passion piece published by Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray). As a writer, some of the quips that came out of the first part of the film were very in jokes. I was with Teddy, and she couldn't quite get why I was giggling.
There are three stories to the film. The first, from the art pages, after a bit about cycing with Herbsaint Sazerac - which is cute, and short.
The next section is the art pages, by J.K.L. Berenson, played by the marvellous Anderson stalwart, Tilda Swinton. The story is of a painter, Moses Rosenthaler (played brilliantly by Benecio Del Toro and Tony Revolori) who is painting from a lunatic asylum. The asylum art show is visited by some critics who love his work and want more. And hilarity ensues. I found this to be the stand out section, with a killer cast. Lea Seydoux, Henry Winkler, Adrien Brody, Bob Balaban and just wonderful.
The next section, about student activists by Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) who is following some ongoing riots in Ennui, lead by the ever beautiful Zeffirelli (Timothee Chalamet). I know Mr Chalamet is an adult, but he still looks 12, and it's a bit strange looking on at this beautiful youth, but these guys are great as well.
And the last section is the cooking section, which leads to a shaggy dog story with Jeffrey Wright as Roebuck Wright, who follows a police caper as well as the police cook's involvement in this.
In all, it's not the easiest film to follow, but it has a stellar cast, it's got that wonderful Wes Anderson aethetic about it.
It made me very happy on a warm Friday night. It's not for everybody, bit if you like something different and have a warped sense of humour like mine, hunt it out. It's great/
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