The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

 

Director-Wes Anderson

Length-100 min.

Rated-R

In a way that only director Wes Anderson could, he demonstrates the fast-paced, quirky and awesomely-weird history of how The Grand Budapest Hotel came under its current ownership in this mystery-adventure-comedy.

From start to finish, this swiftly-moving film of highly intellectual characters with extraordinary vocabularies takes you on a wild goose chase across fictitious lands in order to solve a mystery, keeping your interest throughout.

The film begins with the introduction of the late author (Tom Wilkinson) of The Grand Budapest Hotel novel reflecting upon his prior endeavors as a young man and how he made the acquaintance of Mr. Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), the current owner of the hotel. Mr. Moustafa, being an admirer of the author's work himself, invites the young man (Jude Law) to join him for dinner so that he can relay to him the long and storied tale of how he came into possession of the hotel.

The story that unfolds onscreen includes a variety of very comical sequences that all Anderson's films thrive on, standing on the impeccable performance of M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), who carries the film as its main character. Gustave, being the previous owner of the hotel, teaches Zero everything he knows about running a hotel, and in turn allows him to become him his sole predecessor upon his demise. 

Unlike other Anderson classics like Moonrise Kingdom and The Darjeeling Limited, this film included a decent amount of nudity, vulgarity and violence. Very un-Anderson like, but also showing his truest fans that he can be edgy and dark, as well as quirky and cool. It also had all the vibrant, extravagant costumes and set designs that one could expect from any and all Anderson films.

The cast truly spoke for itself. With the usual suspects including Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton and Owen Wilson, while also comprising the incredible acting talents of Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum and Harvey Keitel; this film has something to offer all moviegoers.

Hold on for a wild ride and make sure you pay attention, because if you don't, you might just miss this instant classic.