Rotten Tomatoes 92%
Empire 301 (2014): #282
Director: Wes Anderson
Screenwriter: Wes Anderson
The Grand Budapest Hotel, like the icing cakes made in it, is exquisitely composed, beautiful to look at and has a delicious flavour to it. Wes Anderson has crafted a lovely piece and although it doesn't quite reach Moonrise Kingdom in scope and sincerity, it is still lovely to sample and to once again take a dip into the unique mind of Anderson.
The ensemble and star-studded cast all turn in very solid performances, but Ralph Fiennes as Monsieur Gustave H, the enigmatic concierge holds the whole film together, with an exceptionally comical and exaggerated performance. As he and his understudy Zero (Tony Revolori) get dragged into a criminal underworld, he manages to maintain the farcical aspects of the film perfectly without going overboard. Willem Dafoe is also an exceptionally menacing and sinister presence as a cold-blooded assassin.
Told in the style of a dream the film peels back layer after layer of the story. A teenage girl reads a book by an elderly author (Tom Wilkinson) who describes the experience of his younger self (Jude Law) as he meets the mysterious owner of the hotel (F. Murray Abraham) and is told of his experiences. This gives the film a surreal quality, perpetuated by it's stunningly inventive and fresh cinematography that is unlike anything before. It also however, makes the film feel a little impersonal and it feels at times like the film aims to be admired but not loved.
That said, in places it is incredibly funny, with most of the comedy centering around Ralph Fiennes, despite the film's protagonist being Zero who is played by relatively inexperienced and young actor Tony Revolori, whose unremitting decency and willingness to go along with M. Gustave stops the film from descending into some kind of over the top parody.
4/5 Stars
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