The Review
Admittedly not everyone likes Wes Anderson's quirky humor, but I'm generally a fan. And I found this movie to be his best yet. It was laugh out loud funny in several parts. It had an interesting plot (lots of moving pieces, and it really kept you guessing as to where the story was headed) great characters, and lots of famous actors. Also I loved the bizarre set-up of the movie (the flashback within a flashback within a flashback). And unlike some of Wes Anderson's previous movies, it never dragged or got bogged down in sentimentality.
Rating
10 out of 10 Stars. (Assuming you're a Wes Anderson fan, this is the best movie he's given us yet.)
Links
My other Wes Anderson reviews: Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Life Acquatic
External Links
I part company with the folks at avclub slightly on this--they give it a mixed review, I'm inclined to think this is Wes Anderson's best work ever. Nonetheless, I'll take the liberty of quoting them only from the sections I agree with--the ones in which they're praising the craft of the film:
the writer-director applies several layers of narrative remove, his story beginning in a modern-day cemetery, as a teenager cracks the spine of a novel called The Grand Budapest Hotel. The film quickly rewinds to the ’80s to meet the author (Tom Wilkinson), then further back to the ’60s to encounter him as a younger man (Jude Law) staying at the once-mighty, now-dilapidated hotel of the title. There, the aging owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), reminisces about his own 1930s salad days as a lobby boy (Tony Revolori) under the tutelage of concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes). These multiple narrators are crucial: Like a piece of juicy gossip passing through a crowd, the past becomes romantically distorted each time it’s retold.
Yes, I quite liked that bit as well. Very clever, very interesting. And:
His visual imagination in overdrive, Anderson stages several inspired chase sequences, a daring prison break, a suspenseful pursuit through an empty museum—all accompanied by the thrum and jangle of Alexandre Desplat’s lively score. Even more so than usual, the director seems to have drawn inspiration from the morbid illustrations of Edward Gorey: His black-clad villains, played by Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe, are right out of one of the artist’s macabre collections, as are the sudden flashes of darkly comic mayhem.
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