The French Dispatch review

THE FRENCH DISPATCH: 

WES ANDERSON’S LOVE LETTER TO JOURNALISM IS AS DELIGHTFULLY QUIRKY AND EMOTIONALLY AFFECTING AS YOU’D EXPECT!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

The various stories of a 20^th century French city will be brought to life in The French Dispatch

 

            Director, Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel) brings his whimsical and melancholic directing style to France to pay tribute to the world of journalism in The French Dispatch, an anthology film that collects three stories set in a fictional 20^th century French city that were published in the titular French Dispatch newspaper. I’ve always been a fan of Anderson’s work since at least high school, films like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom and Bottle Rocket(Which is very underrated, BTW!) to name a few are among some of his best movies in my opinion, and other films like The Darjeeling Limited, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Isle of Dogs are also great watches. 

            Since Fantastic Mr. Fox, I had seen every one of his films in theaters and this one is no exception, and I was very intrigued to hear that it would be an anthology film that tells multiple stories that all correlate with one another. Like the France equivalent of The New York Stories, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and to a lesser extent, Four Rooms, but given Anderson’s storybook-esque directing style, I’m honestly shocked he had never tried something like this before. 

            So, how does Wes Anderson’s first anthology film fare out? While I don’t think it’s one of his absolute best, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie a lot. 

            This is arguably the most Wes Anderson a Wes Anderson movie has ever gotten, I’m not sure if he had full creative control on it, but it certainly feels like he’s gone completely off his rocker and does just about every kind of filmmaking technique possible in this one film. You name it, some of the most gorgeous cinematography and production design out of any Wes Anderson film with various things in the background that can tell a story of their own while you’re watching the main story, several different camera shots used all throughout the film like if Wes was a child using a video camera for the first time, a star-studded cast (Mostly of Wes Anderson regulars), and even black-and-white and animated segments, it pretty much has something for everyone. 

            The film is broken up into three parts, the first part, The Concrete Masterpiece as told by Tilda Swinton (Adaptation, The Chronicles of Narnia, Marvel Cinematic Universe) follows a mentally disturbed artist known as Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro-Sin City, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sicario 1 and 2) who is serving a prison sentence for murder and his muse and prison officer, Simone (Léa Seydoux-Inglourious Basterds, Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, James Bond franchise). When Moses paints an abstract nude portrait of Simone, it catches the attention of art dealer, Julien Cadazio (Adrien Brody-The Pianist, The Village, Midnight in Paris) and becomes a sensation, but at the same time he struggles with inspiration. 

            The second story, Revisions of a Manifesto follows journalist, Lucinda (Frances McDormand-Raising Arizona, Burn After Reading, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) who has a brief romance with a self-styled leader of a student protest going on in the streets known as Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet-Men, Women & Children, Call Me by Your Name, Dune (2021)) and secretly helps him write his manifesto. Lastly, the final story, The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner follows a food journalist known as Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright-James Bond franchise, Boardwalk Empire, The Batman) and policeman, The Commissionaire (Mathieu Amalric-Munich, Quantum of Solace, The Grand Budapest Hotel) attending a public dinner, but that dinner is soon interrupted when The Commissionaire receives a phone call saying his son has been kidnapped and held for ransom by criminals led by a man known as The Chauffeur (Edward Norton-American History X, Fight Club, The Incredible Hulk), and now they have to bring him back in quite possibly one of the most entertaining chases you will ever see in a Wes Anderson film…I’ll just leave it at that. 

            The film also stars Bill Murray (Ghostbusters franchise, Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation) as French Dispatch editor, Arthur Howitzer Jr., Owen Wilson (Zoolander 1 and 2, Wedding Crashers, Midnight in Paris) as Herbsaint Sazerac, Elisabeth Moss (The West Wing, Mad Men, The Invisible Man (2020)) as Alumna, Jason Schwartzman (I Heart Huckabees, Marie Antoinette, Klaus) as cartoonist, Hermes Jones, Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, James Bond franchise) as art collector, Paul Duval, Willem Dafoe (Platoon, Spider-Man, The Lighthouse) as prisoner and underworld accountant, Albert the Abacus, Saoirse Ronan (Hanna, Lady Bird, Little Women (2019)) as a member of The Chauffeur’s kidnapping gang and Showgirl, and too many others to count, and narrated by Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor, The Addams Family/Addams Family Values, The Witches). 

            Overall, The French Dispatch is definitely one of Wes Anderson’s most ambitious films and it’s impossible not to admire his efforts not just on a technical level, but on a narrative and character level as well. The best way I can describe the film as a whole is a love letter to the world of journalism as the film was heavily inspired by articles from The New Yorker that Wes read as a teenager and many of the characters are based off of real-life New Yorker reporters and editors, most notably Murray’s Arthur Howitzer Jr. who is based on New Yorker editor, Harold Ross. 

            Production design and cinematography wise, I think this is the best-looking Wes Anderson movie since The Grand Budapest Hotel. From the architecture of the buildings to the colors that really pop and resemble that storybook-esque style Anderson is known for, and his attention to detail in both the production design and camera shots is almost overwhelming, I can literally just watch the backgrounds and point out everything in it for 2 hours and still be satisfied. 

            The performances by the cast are all excellent but given how this is an anthology film with different stories and characters, there isn’t much time devoted to specific actors and characters, but it mostly consists of Wes Anderson alumni, so you know you’re going to get a very colorful cast of characters and actors portraying said characters. 

            I don’t know what more to say, The French Dispatch just put me in the greatest of moods while watching it, but it also doesn’t shy away from the more emotional and dramatic elements. I can see the anthology structure being a bit of a turnoff point for some viewers, but fans of Wes Anderson will have a delightfully quirky time with this colorful and witty fable.