I often do not agree with professional critics, but I have to concur with Vanity Fair, and NYTimes and others that this film Wes Anderson stumbles, and it is below average work compared to Anderson prior successes. And is it, as a number of reviewers here say, an "homage to journalists?" The journalists in this are actually portrayed as impressionist, seeing and transmitting not the real, but rather their own artificial views of 1960's France.
Stylistically it certainly is apex-Anderson. And that is always enjoyable both in terms of admiring a craft well done and a reward for attentiveness to style. It does approach being finicky, almost cranky at times,. But not too far over the line.
Unfortunately the film's core is a narrative jumble. Actually several narratives jumbled. I can only think this occurred in the editing room, perhaps with so much work there, that the director and editors start to forget that the audience is seeing the film for the first time and that the narratives on the first viewing has to make sense. Even breaking it into four vignettes makes it worse, not better. Look at the treatment of the James Baldwin character: Brilliant subject, brilliant actor, yet the character comes off as superficial.
It is pretty clear Anderson loves The New Yorker of old, the Ross and Shawn eras before it dropped in quality in its evolution into a corporate controlled media in a conglomerate that includes Conde Nast. The real quality of the New Yorker is in its long form (for a magazine) fiction and non-fiction. In fact the modern New Yorker, with current editor Remnick using more reporters than noted writers, is part of the reason why its advertising has dropped, its audience aged, and its once famously unassailable fact checking now a caricature of former quality.
But French Dispatch is *not* an homage to journalists, thank goodness. Anderson clearly mocks them as much as he lauds them. It is really an homage to France, specifically an American impression of France. (French critics have said Dispatch is patronizing, but we will leave that). It is the post-WWII France of the bicycle, baguette, Bardot and beret, albeit without nearly enough cigarettes. Not the 1930's era of Miller and Hemingway in Paris, unfortunately, as that would not have fit use of an American/The New Yorker point of view device. But the less interesting 1950's-60's period. Strangely enough with no detectable nod by Andersen to the most influential cultural export of the time -- French film.
Overall Dispatch is a worthwhile viewing. Certainly for the technical adherence to Anderson's own single occupancy genre. The quirkiness has a bit of a forced element to it. But not artificial or crammed in, not overly so. The main problem is instead of turning pages, as one would do reading The New Yorker, there is more of a feeling of being in a labyrinth without Ariadne's thread, or a general disjointedness.
7.5/10.
Stylistically it certainly is apex-Anderson. And that is always enjoyable both in terms of admiring a craft well done and a reward for attentiveness to style. It does approach being finicky, almost cranky at times,. But not too far over the line.
Unfortunately the film's core is a narrative jumble. Actually several narratives jumbled. I can only think this occurred in the editing room, perhaps with so much work there, that the director and editors start to forget that the audience is seeing the film for the first time and that the narratives on the first viewing has to make sense. Even breaking it into four vignettes makes it worse, not better. Look at the treatment of the James Baldwin character: Brilliant subject, brilliant actor, yet the character comes off as superficial.
It is pretty clear Anderson loves The New Yorker of old, the Ross and Shawn eras before it dropped in quality in its evolution into a corporate controlled media in a conglomerate that includes Conde Nast. The real quality of the New Yorker is in its long form (for a magazine) fiction and non-fiction. In fact the modern New Yorker, with current editor Remnick using more reporters than noted writers, is part of the reason why its advertising has dropped, its audience aged, and its once famously unassailable fact checking now a caricature of former quality.
But French Dispatch is *not* an homage to journalists, thank goodness. Anderson clearly mocks them as much as he lauds them. It is really an homage to France, specifically an American impression of France. (French critics have said Dispatch is patronizing, but we will leave that). It is the post-WWII France of the bicycle, baguette, Bardot and beret, albeit without nearly enough cigarettes. Not the 1930's era of Miller and Hemingway in Paris, unfortunately, as that would not have fit use of an American/The New Yorker point of view device. But the less interesting 1950's-60's period. Strangely enough with no detectable nod by Andersen to the most influential cultural export of the time -- French film.
Overall Dispatch is a worthwhile viewing. Certainly for the technical adherence to Anderson's own single occupancy genre. The quirkiness has a bit of a forced element to it. But not artificial or crammed in, not overly so. The main problem is instead of turning pages, as one would do reading The New Yorker, there is more of a feeling of being in a labyrinth without Ariadne's thread, or a general disjointedness.
7.5/10.