Directed by:
Wes AndersonScreenplay:
Wes AndersonCinematography:
Robert D. YeomanComposer:
Alexandre DesplatCast:
Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Jeffrey Wright, Bill Murray, Lyna Khoudri, Owen Wilson (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch brings to life a collection of stories from the final issue of an American magazine published in the fictional 20th-century French city of Ennui-sur-Blase. With an all-star cast, this vibrant film is a funny, moving celebration of journalism. (Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (9)
A short story tribute to "good old France and reportage journalism" that starts with by far the best story (meaning the Seydoux/Del Toro one, not the introductory one), which makes the others seem a bit unfairly ordinary. Another snag is that they are "one and the same". This is doubly annoying because they are "as if by different authors, each with their own unique style of writing", which should have resulted in each having a clear visual identity. But they are all an amalgamation of styles (different genres, film periods, animation) and therefore they are all indistinguishable from each other. Otherwise, everything is typically Anderson: distinctive poetics, elaborate camerawork, work with pompous mise-en-scene, performances on the edge of caricature, but without slipping into goofiness. Overall, this is so much a Wes Anderson film you’ll know with absolute certainty in advance whether you will like it or not. The only question is how much you'll (dis)like it, since it's a Wes Anderson film that's kind of idling this time.
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Wes Anderson has his own world, where he shoots one film after another. The fact that he has an incredible overview and subtly pours an infinite amount of information into his films deserves enormous respect. I just have a feeling that his films sometimes lack, and that word I have been looking for a long time is fun. There are plenty of ideas here, actors are standardly great, and they are all fantastic. But the plot, where the editor-in-chief of a magazine dies and they release the final issue, from which Wes turns every reportage into the form of this film, is something that will captivate you in the first five minutes (for formality) and after half an hour you will want it to end. Maybe there are too many ideas that can't be handled at first glance. Maybe it's also the structure of the story, which is not cohesive but scattered into a series of small ones that are less and less entertaining. Hard to say. For me personally, however, Grand Budapest Hotel still remains unequivocally the best, funniest, most inventive, and musically most brilliant film of the director in this unspecified genre. Simply everything that unfortunately this film lacks.
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The more recent Anderson’s films, the less animate the dolls he plays with, but they inhabit grander and more decorous rooms. The paradox of his tribute to the floridly descriptive and snobbishly authorial style of journalism consists in the fact that his film highlights its artificiality and illusoriness.
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After the death of a magazine publisher, the writers find out that their magazine is ending. And in the last issue, besides the obituary, they will publish the best articles about art, politics, and food. Wes Anderson presents a not very interesting bunch of stories about journalists in a form that prevents him from selling what usually makes his films most interesting.
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I am surprised by how positively The French Dispatch is received, how willingly the audience jumps on another Wes Anderson dreamy train on the way to their own memories, regrets, and desires. What is missing is that famous step towards the audience, which usually makes such a journey easier through the fantastic world of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or the playful animation of Fantastic Mr. Fox. This time, styles are referenced, forms are homaged, stories are swapped out, and the pace is treacherous due to the differing length and mood of the individual segments. However, when this headwind is overcome, it becomes an inventive, crazy, and contemplative mosaic of everything and everyone, from which, under the weight of the avalanche of various stimuli, the inability to keep up almost leaves your head hurting by the end.
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