Runtime: 1 hour, 39 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Wes Anderson
Quick Impressions:
Ordinarily, there’s little I love more than metadrama, but for the life of me, I could not understand why this film needed so many frame stories.
On the ride home from the theater, I said to my husband, “Okay, I just don’t understand why there were so many layers of narrators. At the beginning, the set-up seemed so complicated and star-studded that I assumed we’d jump back out into each successive frame story at some point later in the film, but I mean that never really happened. So why did they need so many frame stories? Was it just to pack in more cameos? Why have such an elaborate frame…about an elaborate frame job…and the theft of a framed portrait…of a subject the central story’s central character identifies with himself…Okay, never mind. I guess Wes Anderson knew what he was doing, after all.”
So if you like frames, then buy a ticket to The Grand Budapest Hotel and get ready for a real treat!
Frames aside, I thoroughly enjoyed The Grand Budapest Hotel. My husband and I agree that overall, Moonrise Kingdom was probably a better film. (The story there seems so perfectly paired with Anderson’s style.) But “better” is always highly subjective when it comes to art. Like virtually all of Anderson’s movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is presented like a picture book for adults. Stylistically, it’s very similar to Moonrise Kingdom, but thematically it’s totally different, and tonally, it’s quite dissimilar. (Maybe it’s not true that thematically it’s totally different. The movies share the element of bittersweet nostalgia. But barely adolescent first love is something in most people’s past, whereas few people have probably enjoyed the precise sorts of adventures depicted in this film.)
Honestly, to me, the fantastic performance of Ralph Fiennes as Gustav H. (a memorable character for sure) is more than reason enough for anybody to see this movie. He’s really marvelous. Part of me hopes that he’ll somehow end up with a Best Supporting Oscar nomination for this. That’s probably just wishful thinking, but it’s such a phenomenal part, and he plays it with such committed panache. I also truly enjoyed the sonorous narration of F. Murray Abraham. His last line to Jude Law, summing up the character of Gustav H. is so wonderfully eloquent, perfectly apt, and winningly melodic. For that line alone, the movie gets an A+ from me.
If you usually like Wes Anderson’s films, then you’ll probably like this one, too. If you usually don’t like them…then why do you keep going to them? Surely by now everyone knows what sort of thing to expect from Wes Anderson.
The Good:
The theatrical trailer of this movie almost looks like a parody of Wes Anderson’s movies. Just about everybody who has ever even seen one of his movies eventually shows up at the Grand Budapest, whether there’s a part for them there or not.
I wasn’t kidding when I said the movie revels in frame stories. They’re not interesting or well-developed frames, particularly. They’re just kind of hanging around (like frames do, you know). Seriously, the film starts with a woman reading a book. Then we see the author of the book (Tom Wilkinson) narrating some kind of documentary about how he wrote the book. As he tells us his story, we jump into a flashback. Old writer Tom Wilkinson is replaced by young writer Jude Law who proceeds to wander vaguely around the 1960s-era Grand Budapest Hotel, now very much in decline, and basically just as you would expect it to be (i.e., Jason Schwartzman is there). Eventually he meets F. Murray Abraham who finally starts telling him the real story, which of course takes place in yet another era when F. Murray Abraham was a young lobby boy (played now by Tony Revolori).
By this point, I was thinking, Wow, this is a lot more complicated than I expected, and I wondered if we would continue jumping through time throughout the entire film. But it all stops there, and we spend most of the movie following the misadventures of Gustav H. as remembered by his faithful and devoted Lobby Boy (though commendably, at the end of the story, we do travel back through the narrators again until we end with the original girl reading the book). So Anderson’s film (as usual) is very carefully crafted. Basically we get this story about a guy who identifies with the subject of a painting he inherits, and the story is essentially a portrait of him introduced by a series of frames. So that’s nice. (But it does seem like kind of a waste of the talents of Tom Wilkinson.)
This elaborate (yet shallow in terms of development) setup does effectively emphasize for us the significant distance between the main story and the present day. Since the gulf separating the past from the present is a major theme of the movie, that’s all quite nicely done.
The main part of the film is quite simple in terms of plot. It’s also fast paced, with an antic craziness and amusing delight in mayhem.
The story is refreshingly original and unconventional. Popular, high-grossing movies that come out of Hollywood have always been formulaic and familiar. This film definitely is not. Off the top of my head, I cannot recall another cinematic protagonist quite like Gustav H. He’s definitely one-of-a-kind. I don’t mean that there aren’t others like him out there in the world, but he has such life and vibrancy as a character, and he’s definitely not your typical Hollywood hero. Ralph Fiennes brings him to life beautifully and so memorably. He makes Gustav H. endlessly watchable and easy to root for, really far more likable and compelling than he ought to be on paper. I honestly do hope he gets some kind of Oscar recognition (because they kind of owe him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and this could be called a supporting performance).
The other performances are good, too, although there are probably more of them than their need to be. F. Murray Abraham (who’s always good at narrating tragic stories full of surprising intrigue) is absolutely great as the (not-long) mysterious Mr. Moustafa. And Tony Revolori is very solid as Zero.
This movie has a staggering number of familiar faces stuffed into various supporting roles, but not all supporting roles are created equal. There’s a good part for Adrien Brody, a better part for Jeff Goldblum, and an even better part for Willem Dafoe. They all make the most of what they’re given, and they’re given quite a bit. Saorise Ronan also gets a lot of screen time as Agatha, and she’s always very good, particularly in the elevator scene.
The butler and the maid managed to distract me throughout the whole movie. They aren’t in it much, but they both make a huge impression. They’re very good, especially considering the limitations of their roles. I was pretty positive the maid was Léa Seydoux (because she looked just like Léa Seydoux, so why wouldn’t she be?), and she is. I couldn’t place the butler at first, but I was almost positive that I’d seen him in a James Bond movie, and sure enough he’s Mathieu Amalric from Quantam of Solace. (He’s also the guy who plays Jean-Do in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a film that left me feeling vaguely despondent for days.) (That almost seems like an insult. After seeing that film, I felt vague for…days. I really didn’t mean it that way.) Anyway, I think both of them are very good, even though their parts are fairly small.
Some small parts seem far more meaningful than others. Some of the virtual cameos seem more like inside jokes for Wes Anderson fans than actual, fleshed out roles. Even Edward Norton feels more like an inside joke than a fully realized character, and he has a fairly large part. I’m not exactly complaining. I’d prefer that all of these amazing people stay in the movie, no matter what they’re doing there. Tilda Swinton has a very small part, but she’s pretty perfect for it. To me, that casting choice makes absolutely perfect sense. (We need someone who can lie very still and yet make a huge spectacle of herself…) I like Jude Law a lot, but his character seems importantly only because they need an extra narrator for some reason.
The movie is just as stylized as you’d expect, and the story-book visuals make for a pleasant viewing experience. The characters themselves are more original and interesting than the plot they’re mixed up in, but the setting is intriguing, and I always love any story that includes a funicular. (I had such an exciting experience in one when I was in Italy.) I myself once wrote a novel that involved a funicular, and looking back I can now say that the funicular is the one element of that quasi-thriller that I do not regret.
Best Scene:
Maybe this isn’t the best scene, but my favorite part in the movie comes when Zero visits Gustav H. in prison for the first time, and Gustav recounts his fight with a fellow inmate. It’s the way that he describes his relationship with the other inmate now that gets me.
I literally fell over into my husband to avoid laughing out loud obnoxiously when nobody else was laughing much. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I looked like a hyena having a nightmare. (Well, I mean, that’s how the hyena would look to himself if he were having a nightmare like the one in The Artist.)
The way Gustav behaves here so perfectly reveals the essence of his character. The best part is that he’s so sincere and so committed to his life philosophy.
Best Action Sequence:
Anytime there’s murder and intrigue in a monastery (especially if it’s up in the snowy mountains), you’ve got my attention. This sequence is all pretty action driven and weirdly comical. But the best part by far comes when Gustav H. stares death in the eye as he’s hanging from a mountain ledge. The way this scene ends had my husband and me in stiches.
Best Scene Visually:
Hiding stuff in cake is always fun, especially when it’s really pretty cake. (Ornate cakes and F. Murray Abraham together always make me remember the Nipples of Venus from Amadeus. Well, always is probably the wrong word to use there since this is the first time it’s come up.)
Obviously since this is a Wes Anderson film, the whole thing is really stylized and looks great. But if you’re looking for something in a different direction from pretty cake, I also found Jeff Goldblum’s final scene quite arresting. (The earlier scene with his cat is similarly compelling, first amusing then horrific.)
The Negatives:
Speaking of Jeff Goldblum’s final scene and the scene featuring his cat, I feel compelled to mention that you definitely should not take children to this movie. That should be obvious because it’s rated R, but Moonrise Kingdom is so mellow overall that some parents might mistakenly believe that based on its previews, The Grand Budapest Hotel is not really all that objectionable. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. And trust me, if I think something is inappropriate for young children, it definitely is. (That’s not a strike against the film. This just seemed like the most appropriate place to include that warning.) The colors may be pastel, but the story has some very dark elements.
The Grand Budapest Hotel’s most glaring weakness is that the rest of the film is conspicuously not on the same level as Ralph Fiennes’s excellent performance. The actor and the character he’s playing are considerably better than the movie. That’s not to say that the movie is bad. In fact, although I think at this point, Moonrise Kingdom is Anderson’s masterpiece, I’d put this film firmly in the upper echelon of his filmography. In fact, to be honest, I think I liked it better than all his other films except Moonrise Kingdom. I’m not saying that others will feel the same way, though.
Parts of this film feel less…I don’t know…maybe less important than others? The same thing is true of the cast. There are so many people in it that some actors feel underutilized, some characters underdeveloped, they’re just off in a corner hanging around while our focus is elsewhere. Some elements of the story just really don’t seem to matter. Now maybe that’s being done intentionally. So it’s quite possible that on repeat viewings, I will appreciate more about The Grand Budapest Hotel. But right now, it seems vaguely like the Hotel California. A lot of the cast is checked out, but Wes Anderson just won’t let them leave.
Overall:
I’ve been looking forward to The Grand Budapest Hotel for a long time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ralph Fiennes’s central performance as the one-of-a-kind Gustav H. is really something special. And I find F. Murray Abraham’s final assessment of the character infinitely quotable, perhaps worth the price of admission in and of itself. If you liked Wes Anderson’s other movies, you’ll like The Grand Budapest Hotel, too. It’s definitely odd, but there’s nothing else like it in theaters right now.