Movie Title: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Director: Wes Anderson
Date Released: March 28th, 2014
Date Seen: July 30th, 2014
Seen With: Dad, on plane back from Germany
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
Let me preface this review with – I watched this on a plane, probably from hours 4 – 6 on the plane ride, and am not generally a Wes Anderson fan. So, maybe it was the delerium from the plane ride – but I very much enjoyed this movie! I was honestly kind of surprised. I never have strongly disliked a Wes Anderson film, they just annoy me or I get tired of them. The movie still did the things that typically annoy me, but was good enough to keep watching. Also, this review will suck more than usual because, like I said – I saw this on a PLANE months ago.
The movie is really a framed frame story, with each layer getting slightly more “fantatsical” than the previous. I liked that, because it shows how a story changes as it goes from person to person or thorugh time. We mainly focus on Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge in the Grand Budapest Hotel, and his interactions with Zero (Tony Revolori), an up and coming lobby boy in the hotel. We get some theft, some romance, some drama, some comedy, and a little bit of everything. There’s very in your face humor at times, while others there’s very subtle humor that is nice.
While there is a lot of great acting in this movie, I feel like Wes Anderson just called up a lot of big name actors and said “heyyyyyyyyyy wanna be in my movieeeeeeeee k thx bye”. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a bit distracting. Instead of focusing on the characters, you just look at “oh hey, they got Owen Wilson in this too? Oh and Jason Schawrtsman? Oh is that Tilda Swinton?” Just stop.
One thing I like about this movie is also a thing that I hate about the movie. The movie is stylistically gorgeous. All the scenes are very pretty, interesting, with every single little detail well thought out. This pretty usually comes from the symmetry of the shots – which is the thing that annoys me. The shots use the same technique over and over and over so you just get bored with it. It makes for incredible stills of the movie, but watching an entire movie of basically the exact same shot style on repeat just drives me crazy.
I do think in the Oscars this year, this movie will do fantastic in the techincal categories – a majority of which it is nominated for. I like this movie more for the technical aspects than I do for the plot or acting or anything, and I do think it’s a fanstastic piece of art, but not a movie I’d get out and watch on the regular.
Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review
I can’t think of anything I’d like to say here. Oops. Bad Maria.
Overall: 7/10
I’m not a fan of Wes Anderson films for the most part, but the acting was great, the plot was very entertaining, and it was less annoying than his other films, so give it a watch, especially if you are a fan of Anderson’s stuff.
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