THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL | Film Review (NO SPOILERS)

(Source: heyuguys)

Title: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, & a bunch of famous faces
Originally Released: 2014
Running Time: 100 mins / 1 hr 40 mins

Premise. The escapades of the concierge (Fiennes) of the Grand Budapest Hotel as he, along with the help of lobby boy (Revolori), tries to clear his name for the apparent murder of one of the hotel's loyal elderly guests.

Thoughts going in: Wes Anderson's films are a bit hit and miss for me and I tend to really like certain aspects and find other aspects too absurd to comprehend. I'd watched a snippet of this in the summer but fell asleep after 10 minutes due to a long day of walking in the Lake District.

Thoughts immediately after: Why have I had this on DVD for so long and failed to finish it?

The Film: Grand Budapest is divided into five parts and has a prologue and an epilogue. Already we're introduced to the signature style of Anderson, as he plays around with film. The division of the film into parts made the quite exaggerated and ludicrous narrative easier to follow. The colour of the film is exquisite, and the cinematography is different for each time period the film is set in. For the 1930s scenes we have this beautiful pastel pink that envelopes the sequences, whilst when the film presents the war towards the end of the film, it suddenly becomes black and white. It almost mirrors our perception of those periods, we see certain points in life in a nostalgic pastel that's almost etherial, whilst war is bleak and only seen today in black and white. The narrative was sketchy, unbelievable and exquisite. The beautifully bizarre film is naturally eccentric and peculiar, and its very conscious of this fact, making watching the film an absolute treat.

(Source: nypost)

The Cast: Fiennes for Best Actor please? I'm not even joking. He displayed talent I didn't know he encompassed. He was lively, charismatic and ridiculous as Monsieur Gustave, and whilst I knew Fiennes was a good actor, he managed to sell this ridiculous man as semi-plausible. Revolori was a little stale and stiff, not sure if that was the intention but I didn't care for him too much. One would think he's the main character, from the way the film was told, but for me it was all about Gustave. Other notable performances: Tilda Swinton was a delight in the five minutes she was onscreen, Edward Norton was good, and Willem Dafoe was creepy. It had a series of good performances, with Fiennes at the top.

Final Thoughts: An absolute delight to watch, I laughed out loud at the sheer ridiculous nature of the film's plot and characters. The editing made me a little woozy in some cases, but on the whole it was incredibly well-sequenced. The music was lush and I actually wanted more, feeling it was a little quiet at some moments. It's up there with Whiplash for me, one of the best films nominated.

★★★★½