“The French Dispatch” Review
Timothee Chalamet is one of many talented actors starring in “The French Dispatch.” In the film, he plays a rebellious college student working on a manifesto for his revolution against the establishment.
With 25 years of incredible filmmaking, Wes Anderson has completely engulfed cinephiles with his distinct, quirky style of storytelling. My feelings on his films can best be summed up by stand-up comic Marc Maron, “every frame of a Wes Anderson film is like a jewelry box.” With his intricate set design, blunt dialogue and frequent collaborators like Bill Murray and Owen Wilson, Wes Anderson is too brilliant of a filmmaker to fail. His latest film, “The French Dispatch,” has once again cemented his status as one of the best filmmakers of the 21st Century.
The first anthology film from Anderson, the film centers on the titular magazine which tells bizarre, true stories that occur in the fictional French city of Ennui. When the editor-in-chief (Bill Murray) dies, the magazine’s writers select the three best stories of the magazine to publish in a farewell issue as the magazine ceases publication.
Those three stories make up the film and all tell strange stories with a journalist in the background to document them. The first story centers on an art writer covering (Tilda Swinton) a mentally insane prisoner (Benicio Del Toro) finding renown as an artist by painting his guard/muse Simone (Lea Seydoux). When he begins working on his masterpiece, his art dealer (Adrian Brody) begins to grow impatient with the long process, resulting in a funny and poignant climax.
The next story sees a no nonsense political commentator (Frances McDormand) writing about a student protest at Ennui’s university led by Zeffirelli (Timothee Chalamet). To summarize their movement, Zeffirelli begins work on a manifesto despite no one, including the audience, knowing why exactly these students are protesting. As the movement grows, students begin to fight with each other while Zeffirelli keeps the authorities at bay in a standoff game of chess.
The film closes with a food journalist named Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright) going to the police station to report on its famous chef (Stephen Park). But when the police commissioner’s son (Winston Ait Hellal) is kidnapped by a band of cutthroats led by an unemployed chauffeur (Edward Norton), Wright gets mixed up with the police’s chase to rescue the kid.
Editor-in-Chief Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray) serves as a guardian for all of his writers. His death triggers the story as a team of journalists put together the final issue of The French Dispatch.
While Wes Anderson’s filmmaking all have recurring styles and stories, he always manages to differentiate his work by consistently trying new things whether it’s increasingly gigantic worlds, larger ensemble casts or stop-motion films. Here, Anderson is taking several creative risks by having “The French Dispatch” be an anthology film and having large portions of it shot in black-and-white.
But what makes the film so special is how, despite telling different stories, they all have a recurring theme: a love and respect for journalism. As a journalist myself, I love watching investigative films like “All The President’s Men,” “Spotlight” and “The Post” but I really gravitate to films that showcase how journalists can capture culture and the arts like “Almost Famous” or “Life Itself.”
“The French Dispatch” showcases an admiration for the work of journalists and how, just when you think everything is clear, an element comes into play that changes the entire story. All of the stories that the journalists set out to write are completely different as they interview and take part in the story while also trying to just watch what these characters will do next.
Even the sightseeing tour, which introduces us to Ennui, goes awry as the cycling journalist (Owen Wilson) shows the seedy underbelly of what appears to be a lovely, quaint French town. It’s funny in that dry way that only Anderson can deliver.
Owen Wilson stars in the film as a journalist who cycles around Ennui, France, showcasing both the beautiful and horrid elements of the town.
That love can be felt all throughout the film and Wes Anderson’s style results in one of the most beautiful films of the year. Anderson is so mesmerising as a filmmaker that I would have been just as satisfied if the audio went dead and I had to only experience the film visually. Alongside his usual collaborators (cinematographer Robert Yeoman, editor Andrew Weisblum, composer Alexandre Desplat and production designer Adam Stockhausen), Anderson crafts yet another magnificent display of cinema’s beauty.
As for the acting, the cast features Bill Murray, Saorise Ronan, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jeffrey Wright and Jason Schwartzman just to name a few. That just shows what kind of talent Anderson is working with and how well acted “The French Dispatch” is.
At this point, there’s nothing really new you can say about Wes Anderson. Everything I’ve just said about his style has been nothing but regurgitation of what I and other film lovers have been saying about his work for years. I could say that he’s a genius and that he’s too good to fail but that is obvious.
To put it simply, “The French Dispatch” is a fantastic film and one of the year’s best. The only complaint I can possibly give is that it doesn’t quite reach the heights of “Rushmore” or “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Even so, I had a grand time watching this film and I eagerly await Anderson’s next meticulously crafted jewelry box of a film.
