Movie Review: The French Dispatch

The French Dispatch

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Owen Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Lyna Khoudri, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Steve Park, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe

Rating: R

Runtime: 107 minutes

Symmetrical aesthetics, quirky characters, fast-paced dialogues, and vintage set designs. As one of today’s modern auteurs in cinema, Wes Anderson’s memorable visual trademark and techniques have allowed him to be one of Hollywood’s most beloved directors. Films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou all exude Wes Anderson vibes. Because of his particular style, some critics have even mentioned that he has his own film genre. And once again, his most recent film, The French Dispatch, also has that visual-oriented style incorporated into his film. Nevertheless, even though this film pays tribute to The New Yorker and the disappearing magazine culture, it failed me to care about its characters and the art of journalism, making this work a bit hollow and not having much emotional effect.

Prior to the film’s release, due to Wes Anderson’s passion for The New Yorker and the world of magazines, the entire movie is structured and told in an anthology series divided into three narratives. In fact, this film is intended to be an analog for The New Yorker, except this time the story takes place in a fictional town in France called Ennui-sur- Blasé. In this town, Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), the newspaper editor of The French Dispatch, suddenly dies of a heart attack. Instead of issuing the final publication of the newspaper, he asks the writers to republish three articles from the past along with his obituary in his will.

To begin with, the film was a love letter to journalists as it reminded viewers of a sense of melancholic nostalgia of the past when things were simpler ‘back in the good ol’ days.’ But overall, there isn’t much flavor to this film. Now, before getting all upset, I want to explain. Like most Wes Anderson fans, I’ve been fascinated with his directing style. His obsession with the screen’s symmetrical, flat compositions makes the viewing experience much more pleasing to watch. For that reason alone, it can often give style and weight to his films. But the main thing that this film seems to lack is that, unlike his other films, his themes do not resonate much as it feels like it is just listing stories with indifference. So as much as I wanted to enjoy the movie for its unique premise and trying to bring something different to many Hollywood films, it is as if something is missing entirely. It is as if Anderson seemed to have taken the time cooking and preparing the dishes for a full course meal, but all we got was a super-fancy appetizer with its main course dish missing. Personally, this had to do with the story lacking some sense of coherency, making it seem disjointed and all over the place.

But that does not mean that the film was utterly horrible. One of the better aspects of the movie is that most of the actors gave witty performances and dialogues. Performances by Adrien Brody, Frances McDormand, Benicio Del Toro, Timothée Chalamet, Léa Seydoux, and many other more have done quite well to really bring out Anderson’s quirky traits and precise speech patterns on screen. A personal favorite character was Tilda Swinton, as she plays J.K.L Berensen, a writer who dresses up flamboyantly. She accounts about the story of an imprisoned artist (Benicio del Toro) and often shares too much of her sex life details in her presentations, which brought me a few giggles.

Overall, the film is quite good and just that. Wes Anderson’s style with fanciful sets, quick-paced dialogue, and quirky personality is the biggest strength. However, that does not necessarily make up for its stale narrative. Even though I wanted to care, this supposed love letter to old-fashioned journalism and magazine did not click with me and constantly made me doze off. I guess I wasn’t a fan of Wes Anderson as much as I thought I would have liked to be.