Platformed carefully and hyped
heavily, Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” should achieve an
impressive box office success. For unclear reasons, his movies usually please
the reviewers enormously — his first big production, “Rushmore,” benefited from
three major stories in the New York Times on its release, then received the
sort of adoration from critics that devout believers usually reserve for the
deity — so this one should score in both the popular and the critical arenas.
Based on some works by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, the
movie operates within several frames, beginning with an honored novelist (Tom
Wilkinson) explaining his theory of fiction to the camera, then moves to his
voice-over reminiscence of an earlier time, when he stayed at the edifice of
the title. There, as a young writer, now played by Jude Law, he meets the owner
of the once-elegant place, an elderly man named Zero Moustafa
(F. Murray Abraham). Moustafa then relates the story
within the story, the history of his employment and adventures as a lobby boy
in the 1930’s at the Grand Budapest Hotel.
The central character of those adventures is Gustave H.
(Ralph Fiennes), the hotel’s charming, efficient, eccentric concierge, beloved
by all his guests, especially the wealthy, aristocratic Madame D. (Tilda Swinton). He tells young Zero (Tony Revolori) that Madame D., though 84, is “dynamite in the
sack,” explaining, over a rapid montage of various sexual encounters, that he
sleeps with most of the elderly guests.
The sudden death of Madame D. precipitates the movie’s major
plot, which involves her bequest to Gustave H., the anger of her vicious son
Dmitri (Adrien Brody), Gustave’s imprisonment and his various escapes with Zero
from the police, Dmitri’s murderous henchman Jopling
(Willem Dafoe), and an invading army. Like the rest of the movie, the several
pursuits, interrupted by comic dialogue, move at the breakneck speed of
traditional cinematic farce, complete with sight gags, funny props, and
outrageous characters, many of them played by big stars.
Those stars in the cast suggest that actors must like to work
with Wes Anderson, no matter the size or importance of their parts. The movie
features, sometimes in cameos, such well-known names as Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson, so that together
with the many others in larger roles, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” appears to
employ half of Hollywood.
Aside from the energetic pacing and the various farcical incidents,
some right out of the Keystone Kops silent flicks, Ralph Fiennes carries the
movie, managing to convey a good deal of charm and humor even in moments of
pathos and some decidedly uncomical violence. His
constant patter about the duties of a concierge and his staff and the
obligations of service in a grand hotel makes an amusing counterpoint to the
situations he faces, including his desperate escapes and his time in prison. As
his loyal, devoted lobby boy, young Tony Revolori,
projecting a sweet innocence, assists him ably, both as character and as
performer.
The picture mixes its assorted elements in some unusual ways
beyond its exaggerated farce. In addition to its humorous lines, actions, and
situations, for example, it includes a number of quite surprising acts of
brutality — the fatal stabbing of four prison guards, an amputation, a
strangulation in a confessional, and the beheading of an innocent young woman,
hardly the normal stuff of comedy.
The sets create an appropriate background for the story’s time
and place, with the Victorian/baroque interiors of the Grand Budapest Hotel,
the labyrinthine corridors and staircases of Madame D.’s castle, and the
enormously complicated escape route of Gustave H. and his
fellow prisoners. At the same time, most of the establishing shots and
the exterior action scenes, whether intentionally or not, suggest a Disney
cartoon, with flat, painted backgrounds, pastel colors, and buildings that look
like cardboard cutouts. The picture looks good and maintains a persistent
energy throughout, most of it the result of the character of Gustave H. and its
fine sense of pacing; even for someone who is not at all a Wes Anderson fan,
like the present writer, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” provides a more
consistently entertaining experience than any of his previous pictures.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2014.
