THE FRENCH DISPATCH

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The French Dispatch (2021)

Dashiell Hammett once said, “It’s the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.” One hopes that this will not be the case with Wes Anderson. But in his latest film, style over story is definitely on display. And brilliant is the style. Production designer Adam Stockhausen, set decorator Rena DeAngelo, DP Robert Yeoman, and film composer Alexandre Desplat put together a cornucopia of sight and sound that does not let up for its entire 108 minute run time. Its color palette, set framing, and off beat scene and action design fire at the viewer with such unrelenting eye candy as to be overwhelming.

Yet the story told roughly in four parts is incoherent and confusing. Reportedly Anderson was giving a nod to the magazine The New Yorker, but the link is likely recognizable only by those who are intimate with the publication’s history and personalities. And the magazine’s famous cartoons are much more droll and dry than most examples of Anderson’s eccentric wit.

The editor of The French Dispatch magazine (Bill Murray) drops dead early on, and to fulfill the orders in his will, four stories are included in a final publication. Of the four segments, “The Concrete Masterpiece” is largely the easiest to follow. A crazed artist (Benicio del Toro) who is in prison for murder, paints pictures of his nude model (Lea Seydoux), who is also his jailer. An art dealer and fellow prisoner (Adrien Brody), galvanized by the paintings, secures public presentation of them which brings international fame to the artist. Yet subsequent sales of the artist’s works becomes problematic since they were painted on walls when he was in prison. A solution is found.


The film serves as a send up of the pretentious modern art world, political revolutionaries, and Gallic nature. But the scene changes and zany confrontations come at the viewer so rapidly that one finds oneself desperately searching for some cohesion, for some narrative. In contrast Anderson’s 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel has similar style, wackiness and design, but with a more accessible pacing and a discernible plot.

The picture featured a cast full of Anderson regulars plus a carload of bankable stars. Reportedly his next film expands the cast to a boat load size. Hopefully in that film Anderson will have gotten back on track to give us a fathomable story along with his signature eccentricity.

Doc’s rating: Production - 10/10; Story - 5/10



Doc’s rating: Production - 10/10; Story - 5/10
Yup, agree completely. One of Anderson's most technically impressive films. And to his credit, the film he's made about writing, specifically, has a remarkable number of delightful turns of phrase. But there's not much emotion to it and not much to the narrative. Just a sort of grab bag of ideas only tenuously connected. As far as I can tell they don't even really carry any narrative throughlines.

Still an okay film, but overall, as someone who eagerly awaits all of Anderson's films, certainly a bit of a disappointment.



I'd see his movies even just for all of the odd profile views, eccentric camera angles, static cameras and little visual jokes like the picture of Bill Murray above where the desk has 3 orderly stacks of paper and 3 telephones and everything is orderly, arranged with right angles and straight lines, including the typewriter. I don't know what that's about, but I enjoy noticing it. I like visual jokes.



The trick is not minding
Yup, agree completely. One of Anderson's most technically impressive films. And to his credit, the film he's made about writing, specifically, has a remarkable number of delightful turns of phrase. But there's not much emotion to it and not much to the narrative. Just a sort of grab bag of ideas only tenuously connected. As far as I can tell they don't even really carry any narrative throughlines.

Still an okay film, but overall, as someone who eagerly awaits all of Anderson's films, certainly a bit of a disappointment.
Finally got around to seeing this and I pretty much agree with most of the above.
Probably would rank somewhere near the bottom of his output so far, but sill liked it well enough.

Sill need to get around to seeing Life Aquatic and Darjeeling at some point, to finish his filmography.



In my opinion, the weakest movie of Wes Anderson. The plot is 3 out of 10. The image is really cool and bright, but there's a small sence.



On of my favourite films of last year!



The trick is not minding
I tried to watch this a couple of weeks ago and turned it off after about 20 minutes...I will try again at some point.
It’s….definitely among his weaker films. I still enjoyed it somewhat, but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.