The French Dispatch
Year: 2021
Rating: R
Length: 107 minutes / 1.78 hours
Wes Anderson’s films are immediately recognizable for their aesthetic, pacing, and ensemble casts. The dark subject matter of these movies is often glossed over through the application of bright colors, symmetry, and ho-hum characters. The French Dispatch (2021) is basically a “greatest hits” of Wes Anderson’s oeuvre, both in its stylistic visual choices and its vast cast of common collaborators. There’s not enough content for a full movie here, so instead, we get a glimpse into four shorter films tied together via the eponymous “French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.”
Over the last few decades, Wes Anderson has explored a variety of different film techniques through his movies. From stop-motion (like in Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and Isle of Dogs (2018)) to small-scale models (like in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)), Anderson builds upon his distinctive style with each successive project in his filmography. Perhaps this is what is a little disappointing in The French Dispatch: there isn’t a significant upgrade to his style here, as he mainly rehashes stuff that’s worked in the past. That being said, there is an increase in the scale of these techniques (the “frozen” prison sequence comes to mind) that makes up for the lack of a new style.
While the dry Wes Anderson humor is present throughout The French Dispatch, the four segments definitely don’t have the same quality. If I were to rank them, I liked the Owen Wilson bit the best (which is unfortunate, given its short length), followed by the last segment with Jeffrey Wright (he gives Morgan Freeman a run for his money in terms of narration, and the music is extra-catchy here), then the second segment with Benicio del Toro, and finally the third segment with Timothée Chalamet. They’re all distinctively Wes Anderson pieces, just some are better than others.
A collective homage to Wes Anderson by Wes Anderson, I give The French Dispatch 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
