Get The Grand Budapest Hotel
CUSTOMER REVIEW
Theatrical review.
For me director/writer Wes Anderson has been an acquired taste. Certainly the animated "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (2009) and "Moonrise Kingdom" (2012) have become personal favorites. This film has joined the list of brilliant filmmaking. Part 1930's Keystone Cops, part romance, part mystery, part thriller and part about anything else, Anderson has created a world he clearly enjoys but may be a bit strange to the rest of us. Using fictitious settings, characters and evil empires he tosses in terra cotta and other pastels to brighten an otherwise place of increasing darkness in the world.
The time is the 1930's (with flashbacks and flash-forwards) and the setting is a country high in the mountains of Eastern Europe. M. Gustave H is the concierge at the upscale titled hotel. For all practical purposes, he runs the place. His services are readily available especially to the elderly widows that seek him out. He is always accommodating and fairly suggests gender is not an issue. One of his favorite clients is the rich and powerful Madame D. (an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton) who at 84 "isn't the oldest he's...uh serviced" he announces. Under his tutelage is "lobby boy" Zero (Tony Revolori). When interviewed for the job, Gustave asks, "Why do you want to be a lobby boy?" "Who wouldn't" Zero responds.
Zero is played in later life by F. Murray Abraham who is telling the story to a young writer played by Jude Law. When Madame D. dies, a valuable painting is left to Gustave much to the chagrin of her son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and her 3 ugly daughters. When Gustave, who along with Zero have gone to the funeral, realizes Dmitri isn't going to let him leave the castle with the painting, he decides to just take it, which leads them off into the wintery slopes.
Anderson fills up the story with an assortment of regulars including Jeff Goldblum as Madame D.'s executor, Harvey Keitel as a prison inmate, Edward Norton as a military police detective, Saoirse Ronan as Zero's girlfriend complete with a large raspberry birthmark on her cheek, "shaped like Mexico" as well as Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and Bob Balaban as fellow concierges. What is so wonderful about this movie is the silliness of course, but also a nostalgic look back at a bygone era before storm troopers and Ruskies took over that part of the world. Anderson and his wonderful set designers came up with an unusual but satisfying look at the period. Often using miniatures, it just looks great. The film revolves around Fiennes great performance as Gustave. He spits out the words placed there by Anderson with a sense of confidence, breeding and intellect. And he's funny as hell. Highly recommended.