Is Wes Anderson's 'The French Dispatch' Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
Love him or hate him, Wes Anderson's style is one of the most visually distinctive among contemporary directors.
In his latest movie, "The French Dispatch," Anderson paints a colorful portrait of an American magazine published in a fictional French town Ennui-sur-Blasé — and is an anthology of four different stories.
Is the film a beautiful, nostalgic ode to eras bygone or is it too twee for its own good? Here's what the reviews say.
The Movie Is A Love Letter To The New Yorker And Print Media
This film grew from Anderson's love of The New Yorker magazine, and his boyhood fascination with its far-flung correspondents, cartoons and — especially — the film critic Pauline Kael. The movie imagines a French bureau of the (fictional) Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun newspaper teeming with literary aspirations and prickly, difficult, worthwhile writers under contract. Bill Murray plays the stern editor, whose funeral provides the framing device: the publication of the magazine's final issue. The three tales told in "The French Dispatch" visualize three different magazine stories.
Each chapter follows a different piece of writing: Wilson as the bicycling journalist offers the local color of Ennui; Swinton is an art critic delivering a long lecture about a prisoner-turned-artist (Del Toro) who becomes the toast of modern Abstract Expressionism thanks to his guard lover and model (Seydoux); and incarcerated agent (Brody). McDormand is a political reporter who pens a piece about a protest movement led by a student (Chalamet) […] The final chapter features the food critic (Wright) on a talk show recounting the kidnapping plot in which he found himself, with a stylistic flair akin to a World War II-era French espionage thriller, inspired by Jean Renoir, plus an animated car chase.
And As Is Typical Of A Wes Anderson Movie, 'The French Dispatch' Is Artfully Crafted And Visually Stunning
Let's agree: Anderson's films are a pleasure to watch, in the moment. All that fastidiousness, all that assiduously symmetrical framing, all the sheer, cinematographic sweat-equity he puts into his movies for our enjoyment — not to mention the appearance of his go-to cadre of actors like Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton and Tilda Swinton — can't help but leave you grinning from ear-to-ear as you gaze up at the screen.
[NPR]
With its squared-off framing, Tati-esque compositions and bespoke production design, "The French Dispatch" bears the Anderson signatures that have made his movies an artisanal cottage industry. He's an unapologetic fetishist, filling his world with the colors, textures, objects and behaviors that bring him pleasure, confident that enough viewers will agree with him to allow him to do it again next time. "The French Dispatch" is undeniably delightful to look at — the physical choreography possesses the grace and wit of a densely layered tableau vivant — and, even within the crisp, regimented acting style Anderson favors, a few genuine performances manage to take hold.
The Film Is An Omnibus Of Segments, And The Part That Shines Through The Best Is Jeffrey Wright's Performance
The final third of the film's omnibus structure works best, if only because Jeffrey Wright is marvelous as a James Baldwin-inspired expatriate. (A.J. Liebling, author of the real-life, detested-in-Chicago magazine piece "Chicago: The Second City," is another credited influence on the Wright character.) The story titled "The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner" barely coheres, telling a tale of child kidnapping and a wizard of a chef. But Wright manages to find precise and telling nonverbal moments of introspection, cutting through the filmmaker's dioramas.
Jeffrey Wright isn't among the stable of actors Anderson has used before, but his work in "The French Dispatch" makes a strong case that he should be, going forward. Wright adopts Anderson's house style, nailing those familiar, signature rhythms in his delivery, but he also manages to convey a deep sense of melancholy, a loneliness; he creates a man who channels his aching need for connection into his writing. As a result, Wright's performance reaches out of the screen, providing the emotional hook than any Anderson film desperately needs, if it's to linger in the memory.
[NPR]
The Rest Of The Film, However, Seems To Be Sometimes Hollow In Its Emotions
A certain amount of the delight you find in "The French Dispatch" may derive from your appreciation of the cultural moments and artifacts it evokes. Anderson expresses a fan's zeal and a collector's greed for both canonical works and weird odds and ends, a love for old modernisms that is undogmatic and unsentimental. Which is not to say unfeeling. A sign above Howitzer's office door says "No Crying," and while a few tears are shed onscreen, the stories themselves leave the viewer's eyes mostly dry. But there is something unmistakably elegiac in this dream of a bygone world.
It's hard to be critical of a film and filmmaker that seem to have pure intentions, seeking to craft a charming love letter to the golden era of (generously funded) print media. But the tics and habits that make up Anderson's often imitated, never duplicated aesthetic have reached the point of actively working against him in "The French Dispatch." If he is trying to say something (and it's unclear what that might be), all of the fuss and muss obfuscates any message, and even worse, any emotional connection to the film.
But If You're A Wes Anderson Fan, 'The French Dispatch' Will Surely Scratch Your Itch For Anderson-isms
If Wes Anderson films are licorice, "The French Dispatch" is one of those Scandinavian salted varieties that appeals to hardcore fans alone. It contains all the director's tics — the symmetrical compositions, the intricate cross-sectioned sets, the deadpan line delivery — boiled down to their bone-broth essence. Nearly every actor from the de facto stock company Anderson has been building over the years makes an appearance[.]
[Slate]
He's [Anderson] a taste you either enjoy or don't, like cilantro or Campari. "The French Dispatch" is an herbarium of his preoccupations and enthusiasms, an anthology film laid out like a magazine, with a short front-of-the-book piece and three meaty features, all decked out with editorial bric-a-brac and a somber epilogue that may be the best part.
TL; DR
"The French Dispatch" is a movie made with such deliberate, patient skill, and such brio, that its meandering structure and oddly low emotional temperature come off as intentional choices rather than errors of artistic judgment.
[Slate]
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