The Grand Budapest Hotel

Every couple of years we get treated to a comedy by one of the better comedy writers and directors around today, mostly because he doesn't rely on graphic sex, tons of four-letter words, and toilet humor to extract laughs from his audience. I'm speaking of Wes Anderson, who is quite a lot like the Coen Brothers in dry wit using a ton of dysfunctional characters to work with. His last film was the superb "Moonrise Kingdom", and now he has given us "The Grand Budapest Hotel".

This story recounts the adventures of M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at the infamous Grand Budapest Hotel, a European hotel between two World Wars, and Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted protégé and friend. This is all told as a flashback from a much older Zero (F. Murray Abraham) as he regales the story to a young writer (Jude Law).
The story involves the death of one Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) and the leaving of her priceless masterpiece painting to Gustave whom she had been frequenting his hotel for the last 19 years. This action sparks intense anger from a relative, Dmitri (Adrien Brody) as the executor of the estate Kovacs (Jeff Goldblum) reads the will. Gustave decides to steal the painting, lest not getting it in his possession, so he enlists Zero to assist him in this. This is all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.

Others to round out the cast are Edward Norton as Henckels, Willem Dafoe as Jopling, Mathieu Amalric as Serge X., Saoirse Ronan as Agatha, Harvey Keitel as Ludwig, Bill Murray as M. Ivan, Jason Schwartzman as M. Jean, Lea Seydoux as Clotilde, Tom Wilkinson as Author, Owen Wilson as M. Chuck, Larry Pine as Mr. Mosher, Florian Lukas as Pinky, and Bob Balaban as M. Martin.

This was incredibly well directed with his usual powder dry wit by the incomparable Wes Anderson ("Bottle Rocket" '96, "Rushmore" '98, "The Royal Tenenbaums" '01, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" '04, "The Darjeeling Limited" '07, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" '09, "Moonrise Kingdom" '12)  His pacing has the look of a stage play being executed here. This was also written by Anderson based on a story by Anderson and Hugo Guinness which was inspired by the works of Stefan Zweig. His character's dysfunction ranges from minor to totally whacked out that one can get so used to their personalities, that the audience will have to decide if this is the character's dysfunction or just their personality...or both. With the exception of a couple of very small choppy parts in script, this is a marvel. And, of course, Anderson once again treats us with his cinematographer of many of his films, Robert Yeoman, asc, which gives us that unique look that has become a trademark of an Anderson film.

If you like quirky, dry-witted comedy with heaping helping of dysfunctional characters, you'll love this. Basically if you like Anderson, this being golden Anderson, you'll like this and be hugely entertained.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                        Rated: R                         99mins.