Culture

Rating: A

There is no way to adequately summarise The Grand Budapest Hotel’s plot in a couple of sentences, but it must be done for the purposes of this review, so please keep in mind the following paragraph does not remotely do the film justice. The Grand Budapest Hotel follows the eponymous establishment’s devoted concierge, M. Gustave, as he battles to clear his name of murder charges with the help of his trusty lobby boy, Zero. The story includes a prison breakout, a ski race, finger amputation, cat homicide, artisan baking and fellacio (to name a few).

Wes Anderson’s aesthetic has always been highly stylised but here it reaches its peak, as every new shot looks like artwork from a 1930s surrealist children’s novel about aristocracy. The cast is massive and prestigious – again, I do not have the word count to list but, nevertheless, the stand out performances come from Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldbloom and, of course, the impeccable Ralph Fiennes as our hero Gustave, whose portrayal of an eccentric gentleman born into the wrong era carries the film with dignity and humour. Unfortunately, the casting takes a slip when the character of Zero (adult and adolescent) is played by two actors of obviously different ethnicity, making the flashback sequences unnecessarily confusing. Regardless, both actors (Tony Revolori and F. Murray Abraham) played the role beautifully so I’ll let it slide.

My only serious qualm is that despite the absolutely huge ensemble cast, there was only one major female character, adding up to a man to woman ratio of approximately twelve-to-one (#yikes). Of course, there are countless films that present predominantly one gender, and if this was a standalone case I would not give it another thought, but unfortunately this “boys’ club” theme has become a rather worrying trend in Anderson’s films, and I fear one day he will do away with representing women all together. However, that is another can of worms that hopefully will not deter you from seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel on the big screen – it’s an insane, shocking, and wonderful ride you need to be on.