The mention of a Wes Anderson movie tends to make my eyes roll. Admittedly this opinion is based upon outdated information/experience. I saw Rushmore in theaters and the director’s name was put into my mental “do not bother” database. The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited did little to change this. A friend convinced me to try Moonrise Kingdom (haven’t gotten around to it yet). Then this appeared as a trailer before American Hustle. I was willing to give Anderson another chance because this appeared to have a narrative, my main complaint against Rushmore, a meandering mess lacking an actual plot.
Budapest has Anderson channeling the spirits of Capra, Sturges, Wilder, Hawks and Lubitsch even though the romance element is different or played down. As the trailer shows, Gustave is the infamous hotel’s concierge who is skilled at screwing more old ladies than a bingo parlor. Meanwhile he has taken on lobby boy Zero to be his new protege, grooming him for a promising future. When the elderly dowager Madame M dies, Gustave inherits a priceless painting over the objections of deceased’s son Dmitri. Matters kick into high gear with chases, punches, stalking and a whacky prison escape.
It wouldn’t be an Anderson flick without the director’s color usage, framing and inventories. Otherwise he’s just copying from the previous directors I listed.
My only complaint is the opening and ending employing a flashback to a flashback to a third flashback before the story finally begins. I found it pretentious yet par for the course with Anderson. Not a deal breaker once Budapest actually starts.
I highly recommend seeing this. Very few comedies succeed trying to recreate the frenetic pace, plot, dialog, etc of past classics like It Happened One Night, Miracle at Morgan Creek or (the original) To Be or Not To Be. The closest in recent memory for me was The Hudsucker Proxy. All too often, contemporary comedy involves Wil Ferrel skewering a sport, Adam Sandler doing the worn-out frat boy thing and Eddie Murphy wearing a fat-guy suit.
Alamo Extras: A couple Wes Anderson shorts, namely his take on Han Solo shooting first; a beer commercial directed by Anderson; an SNL parody of a slasher movie if it were directed by Anderson; the “Page Miss Glory” cartoon I saw as a kid ad nauseum back in Springfield on KPLR; trailers for movies this movie is inspired by: The Good Fairy, The Shop Around the Corner and The Mortal Storm.