Haute couture

It's very easy to spot a Wes Anderson film. The limited color palette, the offbeat characters, the feeling like every one of them is some kind of caper, even if the story is far more sedate and intricate than that; all of these little details make an Anderson film instantly recognizable as soon as a trailer for one of them begins. When Jaime and I were sitting through the previews before Bergman Island a couple weeks ago and the first moments of The French Dispatch appeared on the screen, we both thought two things: "That looks like a Wes Anderson film." and "That looks amazing." It's a telling reminder of his consistent style (noted by most film scholars as being a central figure in the "American Eccentric" mode), as well, since Jaime is more a fan of his earlier work (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) and I'm more attached to more recent offerings (Moonrise Kingdom, Grand Budapest Hotel) but we both were instantly moths to the flame at the brief glimpses into the concept of The French Dispatch. There's little doubt that he's a huge hit to those of us who are fond of films that go a bit beyond standard offerings and, likewise, little doubt that he's just as popular within the film industry itself, considering the legion of names he was able to entice into taking bit roles in this project (everyone from Christoph Waltz to Henry Winkler), but it's just as true that his style is unusual enough that it's easy to understand how it doesn't make a connection with a lot of regular movie fans. As far as Dispatch is concerned, it's fair to wonder how much of that possible disconnect was style and how much was substance when compared to previous efforts.

As I've mentioned here many times, I'm a story guy. If I'm going to appreciate what you're doing, you first have to tell me a decent story. That's been true of all of Anderson's films to date and one of the things that supports his style. He has quirky characters doing odd things, but they're all rooted in a solid, meaningful story that provides the foundation for the slightly off-kilter worlds that they're told in. Dispatch is no different except that this time, it seems like his motivation for doing this film was to present an homage to The New Yorker and the various long-time writers who worked for the magazine, instead of coming up with a new world all his own. That's not really a story and, indeed, Dispatch is made up of three separate tales connected by an overarching framework which is the fictional French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. It's a way of connecting small town Kansas with equally small town France, in this case the fictional Ennui-sur-Blasé (literally "boredom on apathy".) That provides a basis for Anderson's odd scenarios and characters, but it also detracts from the driving central theme that usually inhabits his work. It's more of a survey than a novel, which seems appropriate because, again, he was writing it as something of an homage, rather than solely telling a story as he's done before. I certainly don't object to directors and writers trying something new. After all, everyone has to stay interested in their work if it's going to be what they want it to be, but I can't help but think that the departure from the story as the prime motivator may have left this film lacking a bit of the magic that usually inhabits his creations.

The three segments are almost as odd as ever: an artist imprisoned in Ennui's Prison/Asylum (as always, the wry allusions to modern circumstances are everywhere in Anderson's productions) who becomes famous in the art world because of a fraudster imprisoned with him (The Concrete Masterpiece); a reporter who has an affair with a leader of a student protest and helps him write his manifesto (shades of Jack Reed) (Revisions to a Manifesto); and another reporter who writes about a dinner with a police commissioner which is interrupted by the kidnapping of his son who can only be rescued by the police chef who prepared the dinner (The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner.) I say 'almost as odd' because, as noted, Revisions is quite similar to something that can be drawn straight from history. That can't be totally surprising as, again, Anderson was doing this as something of a love letter to The New Yorker, which was and is a prominent voice of journalism. But it also means that we're veering away from the usual Anderson fantasies (Isle of Dogs, etc.) and into something where "offbeat" is perhaps not the best descriptor. In that respect, Revisions is also the most forgettable of the three stories and "forgettable" is not a word one often uses about a Wes Anderson film.

But, also per usual, many of the performances are excellent and show the willingness of the actors to completely immerse themselves in an Anderson world. Particular standouts are Tilda Swinton, Benicio Del Toro, and Léa Seydoux from Concrete (the latter with less than half a dozen lines); Timothée Chalamet and Lyna Khoudri from Revisions; and Jeffrey Wright and Saoirse Ronan from Private. Wright, especially, hit the combination of world-weariness but still earnest inquiry that seems to fit the conception of a veteran New Yorker writer. (He was one of the many highlights for me from Boardwalk Empire and one of the few from Westworld, too.) It was a treat to see so many well-known faces show up in minor roles; among them Winkler and Waltz, as noted, but also Edward Norton, Lois Smith, Liev Schreiber, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson as the travelogue writer who sets the stage for the whole piece, among many others.

So, overall, it works as both a film and a Wes Anderson film. I certainly want to watch it again to see some of the many details which I may have missed and to convince myself that I haven't simply missed out on the magic of this one. But it's certainly not among my favorites of his oeuvre and not something I would suggest that people rush out to see unless they already enjoy his work. At the very least, it was entertaining, which is the bottom line for any film.