Plot Summary – A love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in “The French Dispatch.”

★★★★★ 

Watched on 05 Nov 2021

I went into this film with huge expectations, I’m a big Wes Anderson fan and I recently watched The Grand Budapest Hotel again which I really love and seeing the cast of this film increased the hype even more. I am delighted to say that I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. This film met and blew away every single expectation I had for this film. It’s so hard to describe what exactly is great about this film because there is nothing that isn’t. This is an example of a director at the peak of his powers doing whatever he wants with his buddies and it’s freaking amazing. I was either laughing or smiling throughout the entire film, no director on this planet makes films that make so happy after watching them. I really respect people who like to know nothing before watching a film so I’m not going to say what the narrative device or structure of the film is but I think it’s the perfect medium for Wes. It allows him to embrace his style and not worry too much about ‘substance’ while experimenting so much with camera angles, lighting, color grading, actor pairings and so on. This film also does a really really great job of catching you off-guard and truly doing the unexpected. Films have become so predictable nowadays and this was really something where there was always a joke or a moment hidden up Wes’ sleeve that I really did not expect. As a writer myself, the first thing I pick up on is the writing and like most Wes Anderson scripts this one is flawless. This is probably his best dialogue in any of his films and just some of the moments and lines are so great that they just stand out in your head even hours after you watched it. The performances were all amazing, my favourite being Lea Seydoux, Adrien Brody and Benecio del Toro. No one in this humongous cast gives a bad performance though and they all just turn into their characters and I think that’s another huge credit to Wes. He could have easily been overwhelmed by the starpower and played into their archetypes but this is clearly a ‘script-first’ kind of movie and it really makes it a fun watch trying to recognize all the A-list actors that populate this movie. I always feel like I have a lot more to say when I don’t like a film because how much can I say positively. Of course, it goes without saying that this film is absolutely, mind-bogglingly gorgeous and the production design is out of this universe but I feel like that can be taken as a default for Wes. I really really loved this film. It’s my new favourite Wes Anderson film and definitely one of my favourite films of 2021!