The French Dispatch

A disjointed anthology which see’s the director fall into the realms of parody

Loosely based on the New Yorker magazine, The French Dispatch, the tenth film from Wes Anderson, fails to live up to its hype and ends up being one of the auteur’s weakest films to date. We follow the French outpost of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, set in the fictitious town of Ennui-sur-Blasé as it prepares to print its final issue under the editorship of Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), who we are told has since died.

The structure of The French Dispatch is an anthology with an opening, ending and three short stories in between. Even though this method of storytelling allows for you to explore many different routes, it naturally means some parts are going to be stronger than others, something that persists throughout, while also leading to a disjointed narrative, which is what I found most disappointing, especially from someone as meticulous as Anderson.

After a brief prologue, aided by Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) giving us a tour of the town on his bicycle, we delve into a story about Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro), a talented artist who is incarcerated in an asylum and has his guard, Simone (Léa Seydoux) as his muse. After being discovered by a fellow inmate, Julien (Adrien Brody), who in turn is an art dealer, Moses goes on to have a successful career. Honestly, this story is boring and the weakest of the three, doing little to add to Dispatch, while also being prevented from having any rhythm by the constant need to cut to Tilda Swinton’s J.K.L. Berensen giving a lecture,.

This is followed by the story of a young revolutionary, Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet) who befriends and beds a veteran journalist, Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) who is profiling him for the magazine. Much of what was missing from the first story returned in this vignette, mainly the deadpan one-liners which we’ve become so accustomed too from Anderson. Credit must also be given to Chalamet, as well as Christoph Waltz, who both firmly slot into the world of Wes Anderson and feel like they’ve always been a part of it — the standout line being Chalamet commenting about his muscles.

However, it is in the third, and final, story where Anderson starts to find his feet, sadly it is a little too late. We follow Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright), a food writer, as he attends a dinner at the Commissaire’s, cooked by Lt. Nescaffier, and ends up getting embroiled in the kidnapping of the Commissaire’s son, Gigi. There are two standout moments from the third story, the first is Anderson’s venture into animation which pays a true homage to the New Yorker, while the other is with the character of Gigi, as we finally get Anderson going back to one of his most subtle and sublime trademarks which is that the children in his world are smarter than many of the adults.

The vignettes are followed by what is essentially an epilogue, detailing the death of Howitzer and the obituary written by his staff, finally bringing writers from all three stories together. The standout comedic scene being when they all crave cake as Howitzer’s body lie on the desk.

The French Dispatch is by no means a bad film, I doubt Anderson could ever make a film that could be described as “bad”, yet this misses the mark. It honestly feels as if Anderson came up with loads of ideas and was unable to decide on which one to develop into a feature and opted to turn all of them into the short stories, which is slightly frustrating — especially since he’s been on a phenomenal run of form since 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox.

I was also underwhelmed by the visual aspect of The French Dispatch. Yes, it’s your standard Wes Anderson designed film, but it is stretched so far and does not really expand beyond the spectacle which was his last non-animation feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, meaning that his chocolate box world has stopped feeling like a priceless praline from a Belgian boutique and feels more like a mass produced chocolate button.

Is The French Dispatch bad? No. Is The French Dispatch Wes’s best? Also no. Is The French Dispatch boring? Sadly, yes.