Director Wes Anderson has consistently divided audiences, even though his film’s have always won over vocal supporters – including with his brilliant first and second films, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, which Martin Scorsese called “both very funny, but also very moving”.
2012’s Moonrise Kingdom was perhaps his most well-received film, by critics and audiences. His follow-up is The Grand Budapest Hotel which premiered at Berlin Film Festival this week.
The first reviews are in, here’s a sample of the glowing praise.
THE GUARDIAN: A nimblefooted, witty piece, but one also imbued with a premonitory sadness at the coming conflagration [World War II]; the scenes where Gustave and Zero are threatened by jackbooted thugs are properly alarming.
VARIETY: One of the more frequent accusations leveled at Anderson — that he’s a filmmaker who favors style over substance — will ring even hollower than usual after Budapest Hotel, a captivating 1930s-set caper… offers a vibrant and imaginative evocation of a bygone era.
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: An idiosyncratic period comedy that will delight connoisseurs more than the wide public… With an attention to design detail that now has perhaps morphed from a preoccupation into a mania.
LITTLE WHITE LIES: An opulent and elaborate cartoon romp that exists under a deep ocean of Andersonian melancholy. The haters will no-doubt hate, but this is a sparkling effort with an utterly endearing lead turn from Ralph Fiennes.
SCREEN DAILY: A warmly whimsical and deftly magical tale of love, robbery, murder and comedy mishaps all set against the fantastical backdrop of an imaginary central European region, Wes Anderson’s beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable Budapest Hotel sees the director deliver his best film.
Budapest Hotel opens in NZ and Australia on April 10. More on the film here.
