The Grand Budapest Hotel

Often overlooked yet consistently impressive, director Wes Anderson is yet to make a bad film with each of his releases bettering his previous work. The Grand Budapest hotel very much follows in this desirable track-record, maintaining Anderson’s distinct quirky style whilst surprising audiences by being the funniest film of his to date.

Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel and his trusty lobby boy Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori) are struck with bad news that a veteran guest of theirs has been murdered, prompting widespread investigation and an exciting crime-caper. Despite holding the similar qualities of Anderson’s style that we’ve grown to know and love from his compelling colour palette to his fast flowing narratives, The Grand Budapest hotel shows to be far darker than some of his other releases, complementing this with comedy aplenty. From severed heads to amputated body parts this unexpected darker theme correlates with the setting of wartime Hungary, this is wholly new ground for Anderson but he tackles it with enough wit to make it upbeat and enough sincerity to make it believable. Jopling, a violent henchman (Willem Dafoe) is usually the cause of this comedy with his dark humour consistently contrasting to hilarious degrees with the innocent nature of the two protagonists. This comedy peaks during a skiing sequence which positively goes down as one of Anderson’s best moments to date, with the snappy remarks of the characters mixing with the slap-stick ridiculousness of the cinematography for truly hilarious effects.  

Such coagulation of humour and realism is encapsulated perfectly through the performance of Ralph Fiennes, producing perhaps his very best performance as the hugely loveable, mad eccentric Gustave H. Alike all of Wes Andersons releases the acting across the board is phenomenal pulling in countless famous faces to depict even the kookiest and most meaningless characters. Whilst these cameos did (and always do) add to the overall enjoyment of the film, one too many takes the audiences concentration away from the story and back into the celebrity world of Hollywood, with such actors as Owen Wilson (who is no doubt very good in his role) ultimately serving no purpose as appose to being the cause of soft murmurs whispering ‘Look it’s the guy from Marley and me’. That said, certain cameos that played bigger roles were far more comedically and dramatically impactful, with Edward Norton’s portrayal of ‘Henckels’, a hectic police chief, showing to be just this.

Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, The Grand Budapest hotel is a worthy edition to Wes Anderson’s hugely impressive collection, being amongst his very best works. Despite being not as narratively broad as his other films Andersons eye for comedy and unique story telling makes this film truly special being consistently hilarious and overwhelming fun.

9/10- A war film like no other, a whopping great ride

Calum Russell