Hi everyone,
I'm feeling inspired by the last-minuteness of this moment to hold myself to my goal of writing briefer posts about movies in support of the overall aim to write more and more often. So here we go!
I'm happy to say that I've started the new year by not only watching a lot of movies (11!!) but also watching several very high quality, enjoyable movies. The first such film was Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch" (2021).
Perhaps surprisingly, for a few reasons I was hesitant to watch this movie. I've been so emotionally burned out, and so wasn't sure I was prepared for the poignancy Anderson so deftly infuses into his otherwise so-twee-it's-eating-itself oeuvre. I also feared being disappointed by one of my favorite directors, and due to aforementioned emotional burnout being ill-equipped to tolerate that potential disappointment.
Nevertheless, and happily, Husband suggested watching it on the first day of the new year, and the gamble fully and heart nourishingly paid off.
I was grabbed immediately by the goddamn delight of this film. The opening sequence immediately plunges the viewer into the precious and precise Anderson universe, as we watch skillful hands load and spin and load and spin a tray with all sorts of fiddly (and somewhat grotesque?) treats then trace an intrepid waiter's trek up an Escheresque series of stairs, ladders, and pulleys to take that tray to its final destination, all accompanied byAnjelica Huston's detailed narration of the titular publication's editor's biography. It was like plunging into a warm, playful ocean -- I felt immediately embraced, blissfully submerged in a cheerfully, lovingly, and fastidiously curated parallel universe and buoyed by the voyage.
It's all the better that the film is set entirely in an imaginary French town, where the poised and hipsterly ennui that imbues so many of Anderson's movies informs the name of this movie's setting: Ennui-sur-Blasé. As someone who desperately and achingly loves and misses Paris, I was grateful for a trip to an imaginary France that was just close enough to the real place I long for but not so close that it utterly broke my vulnerable heart. If this film had been set in Paris, as more and more months slide by since my last trip there, I might not have been able to watch it.
Anderson honestly outdid himself with his casting for "The French Dispatch": the film features several Anderson film regulars, most notably Bill Murray, but also Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban, Owen Wilson, and thank God, Edward Norton (because where else do you get to see him anymore??). He also manages to cram in wonderful performances by Benicio Del Toro and Jeffrey Wright (as a lovely and loving allusion to James Baldwin), as well as Christoph Waltz, Timothée Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, Steve Park, and Henry Winkler for godsakes. Honestly, I had to scroll the film's cast list on IMDB multiple times to make sure I'm not missing anyone because there are so many excellent actors and pitch-perfect performances in this movie (and I'm almost 100% sure I'm still managing to accidentally leave someone out).
I so thoroughly enjoyed this movie I was absolutely breathless at the end. It is perhaps one of Anderson's best, most Anderson-y movies, in the best possible way. If you like Wes Anderson, this is about as pure a version of his work as you can possibly get. As a massive but not always satisfied fan of his work, it was a joy, a relief, and a welcome respite from this in so many ways wearying world. I gave it an enthusiastic and grateful 5.
I hope you also love it!
{Heart}
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