REVIEW: Grand Budapest Hotel (2014, Dir. Wes Anderson)

It is with some satisfaction, and a fair amount of pomp and ceremony, that I am thoroughly tickled to announce that I was absolutely captivated by The Grand Budapest Hotel, the latest silver screen trifle from cinema's quaintest auteur, the indefatigable Mr. Wes Anderson.

I should add that my delight was somewhat unexpected. I unhitched from Mr. Anderson's bandwagon back in the days of Rushmore, those salad days when he still favoured character development and narrative over repeatedly breathing too-brittle life into what can, for the most part, be described as cinematic annotations (ref: The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic et al.). So I left him to wend his way through the confetti of critical adoration, tossed off by waif-thin men wearing cravats and lens-less spectacle frames.

I checked back often enough to be faintly amused but always faintly and always with a pang of regret for what had been lost.

Yes, I'm overstating my disenchantment a touch (for appearances sake), but the shift in Anderson's effectiveness here is remarkable. Facetiousness aside, what I adore most about The Grand Budapest Hotel is how masterfully and how suddenly Anderson's has settled into his own skin, how he resolutely succeeds without betraying his schtick. If anything, The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most Wes Anderson of all Wes Anderson films. It is meticulously framed, exquisitely designed, whippishly erudite, and impeccably cast, though with Murray, Swinton, Norton, Brody and Schwartzman in his pocket it is hard to envisage any of his films from hereon in won't be.

But The Grand Budapest is also rollickingly paced, driven forward by both its story (within a story (within a story (within a story)))) and its ever-so-slightly-more-rounded, enormously endearing characters, chief amongst them, Ralph Fiennes' archly foppish concierge, M. Gustave. It is not as though Anderson is a stranger to casting coups (indeed, after Bill Murray's turn in Rushmore, the acting fraternity seemed to switch on to Anderson's ability to give their star power a second wind) but with Fiennes he fans a comic talent we've barely seen from the Brit and one that perches itself atop Anderson's concoction perfectly. As M. Gustave, Fiennes pulls laugh after laugh after laugh from the material, rivalled in this ability only by Anderson's deliciously intricate visual and narrative artifice, which itself owes much to the Viennese writer, Stefan Zweig, who provided considerable inspiration.

I realise I've gone through this whole review without giving you much to go on in terms of what The Grand Budapest Hotel is actually about, and that's as it should be. If you need some bagatelle, the action kicks off after one of the hotel's stately guests (who was also one of M. Gustave's dalliances) is found dead and our good concierge is the main suspect. He goes on the run with his recently indentured lobby boy, pursued by all manner of trouble including the local fascists, who've begun their creep across the fictional European state.

I won't give you any more than that. The twists and turns are all part of the fun and you're far better off experiencing the adventure for yourself. If I've translated some of the joy Anderson's been able to capture here, then all the better.

Now go check yourself in.

★★★★☆

Trailer: