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The Grand Budapest Hotel


THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

Wes Anderson is a filmmaker whose work has inspired a cult audience but he has also found mainstream success, as evidenced by 2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel, a lavish and loopy comic adventure that is so stylishly mounted and brilliantly cast that it earned eight Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. I have to confess that it is only coincidental that I watched this after The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou...this one had been on my watchlist for a while but had no idea that Anderson directed it.

The film follows the incredible but entertaining adventures of Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), the concierge at the title establishment and the unlikely friendship he develops with Zero Mustafa (Tony Revolori), his devoted lobby boy (bell hop) that grows and flourishes between the first and second world wars. As concierge, Gustave was able to manipulate up close and personal relationships with hotel guests, particularly the older, female wealthy ones and when one of them (Tilda Swinton) ends up dead, Gustave's job and life are forever compromised, forcing him to go on the run with Zero, the jumping off point for one of the most outrageous comic chase/crime escapades ever put on film, whose originality is only surpassed by its unpredictability.

Anderson's Oscar-nominated screenplay is sophisticated and stylish, though it seemed to be peppered with a lot of adult language that didn't seem period-appropriate and might have had something to do with the film losing that award. Anderson was also nominated for his direction and there aren't a lot of wrong moves made here...a director who has developed a growing rep company with each film and somehow manages to create the perfect marriages of character and actor while never neglecting the technical aspects of perfecting story authenticity while never letting us forget we're watching a movie without actually breaking the 4th wall, something that Anderson has gotten down to a science. His camera work is deliberate and stark, creating striking cinematic pictures that linger in the viewer's mind, yet at the same time keeping his story moving at a such a lightening pace that there is no time to question the events unfolding in front of us. Anderson is a filmmaker whose work requires and demands complete attention and never has me looking at my watch.

Anderson has put together an absolutely brilliant cast here, headed by Fiennes, who has not been so charismatic onscreen since Quiz Show and Revolori is a revelation as young Zero. The brilliant supporting cast includes Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, and Jude Law. Anderson's care regarding the look of his story was rewarded with four richly deserved Oscars for costumes, hair and makeup, music score, and the breathtaking set design. A one-of-a-kind motion picture experience that will spark the imagination and tickle the funny bone.