Review: The French Dispatch (2021)

Wes Anderson is one of the few directors active today that has a unique visual style that just about anyone can pick up from just a screenshot from any of his movies. It’s not just the way he frames every shot, but also the soundtrack to match and snappy dialogue add to a look and feel that hasn’t been replicated by others. The French Dispatch is no different from his previous entries like Rushmore or The Grand Budapest Hotel, and to an extent that’s fine.

Like Anderson’s other movies, The French Dispatch is a highly stylized look at what articles are written in the last issue of the titular magazine. It is an anthology following three stories presented as a look at the arts in this French City. The anthology nature of the movie helps keep the stories from dragging unnecessarily and allows for each of them to be exactly as long as necessary to keep the plot moving. While portrayed as stories about art, poetry and food, the stories are really about revolution, organized crime and the exploitation of prisoners.

This movie features a massive ensemble cast of Academy Award winners and nominees who all give performances that one would expect from actors of their caliber. From actors in major roles like Benicio Del Toro and Timothée Chalamet to small roles held by Willem Dafoe and Tilda Swinton, every person in the movie fades into the role as to not distract from the movie. It is their performance of the script that elevates it to the next level.

The script, specifically the narration, is a deep replication of the traditional writing structure one would find in literary journalistic works. It shows a deep love on the part of Wes Anderson for this style of writing that is transferred to the cast members like Frances McDormand and Jeffrey Wright who are tasked with taking this material and elevating it.

Because this film is so like Wes Anderson’s past filmography, it is unlikely to change any minds. It is reminiscent of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood where the director can lean into their usual cliches without any oversight, resulting in a narcissistic, self-indulgent creature of a movie. In fairness, it does work to a much higher degree than Tarantino’s last movie, but that does not mean it’s something that by and large directors should be looking to imitate.

To an extent, Wes Anderson needs to show some development as a filmmaker. An audience does not look at major franchises and expect them to just stay static forever. True, the films of Wes Anderson are works of art to the point where The French Dispatch is probably going to be in serious contention for at least one Academy Award this year, but there hasn’t been much development in his style or the quality of his work over the course of his career. Maybe he does not need to change, maybe he just needs to stay in his little corner of the cinema landscape, however when he doesn’t do anything new in his movies, it makes it very hard to recommend someone see the new one. Why should someone go to the movies to see this one when they can pick up a Blu-ray of The Grand Budapest Hotel for under $10 and watch it from the comfort of their own couch?

Rating: 7.5/10