The French Dispatch

"Just Try To Make It Sound Like You Wrote It That Way on Purpose"

or

The Good and the Adject-Evil (Not Necessarily in a Bad Way)

 

Wes Anderson's new little chocolate toy-box of a movie is The French Dispatch (of the Liberty Kansas Evening Sun)—written with Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Hugo Guinness—centered around the arty-little adjunct magazine that resulted when the son of the editor of Liberty Kansas Evening Sun, Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (played by Bill Murray) spent an extended holiday in the French village of Ennui-sur-Blasé and never returned home, instead creating an supplement for Dad's paper—"a factual report on the subject of world politics, the arts, high and low, and diverse stories of human interest."

 

Already, the town's name had me giggling, as not only is it a hilarious name for a burg (especially in France), but it also is the perfect site (and attitude) from which writers could concoct articles in a "New Yorker frame of mind". The movie centers around that magazine on its final issue of publication, pursuant to the wishes of the editor upon his death, that it cease and all of its assets liquidated. Thus, it consists of "an obituary, a travel guide, and three short articles" that have been culled from the magazine's past.

The obituary is, of course, Howitzer's, and it is inextricably tied to the magazine's history with no future—and reassuring subscribers that they will be refunded for the remaining issues that will not be forthcoming.

Next is a tour of Ennui-sur-Blasé with bicycling reporter Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) who pedals about the village (often precariously) giving a guided overview of its piquant and sordid charms—for example, that it hides a vast population of vermin and scavengers (as illustrated above) and the curious statistic that 8.2 bodies are pulled from the local river every week.

The first of the stories—"The Concrete Masterpiece" tells the story of an art dealer (Adrien Brody), imprisoned for tax evasion, stumbling upon a masterwork by one of the mentally disturbed inmates, Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio Del Toro), inspired by his muse and lover (and guard) Simone (Léa Seydoux). He buys the piece and Rosenthaler becomes a sensation in the art world, but his methods are idiosyncratic to say the least and his latest work, three years in the making, proves problematic to its patron. The story is presented as a lecture by art historian J.K.L. Berenson (Tilda Swinton) and features appearances by Tony Revolori (from The Grand Budapest Hotel), Bob Balaban, Henry Winkler, and Lois Smith.

The second story is "Revisions to a Manifesto" in which a reporter/Witness to History, Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) struggles with objectivity in her reporting of a youth revolt (called "The Chessboard Revolution") in Ennui, led by the charismatic Zeffirelli B. (Timothée Chalamet), who struggles with writing his manifesto—writing it in the cafe doesn't work, nor does writing it in his bathtub—and comes to rely on Lucinda to finish it.

The final story—"The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner"—is structured around a television interview (hosted by Liev Schreiber) with the article's author Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright, no relation) who recounts the circumstances of a dining review of the exquisite meals prepared by the police lieutenant chef Nescaffier (Stephen Park) for Ennui's police commissaire (Mathieu Almaric) only to be embroiled in an investigation when the chief's son is kidnapped (by a gang that includes Edward Norton and Saoirse Ronan). It offers a chase sequence done in animation.

Still with me, there?

 

This may be the densest, most convoluted, detailed and realised of Wes Anderson's little confections, linked by his distinctive, reductive style of boxed-in, symmetrical (well, for the most part) compositions, and an acting style that would best be described as "Keaton-esque." The film zips along like a cartoon, heavily narrated and presented with layers of cascading framing devices and in a mish-mash of black-and-white and color in different aspect ratio's that have no narrative function other than to clash with the scene before it. Plus, reality is constantly challenged with animation (mentioned before), deliberate model-shots, and an extremely porous fourth-wall. The phrase I keep seeing in reviews is it's "the most Wes Anderson movie of his movies."

Of course it is. Even as he's stealing tricks and homages from shot-to-shot (but not for very long). It IS "The Most Wes Anderson Movie Of His Movies."

 

But not necessarily in a bad way.

You don't get lost, even when the director takes you down so many rabbit-holes your eyes might pop out of your head and your brain starts to take on a misty quality. Nor is one ever bored—unless one is so churlish as to ask "What's the point?" The film clocks in at an hour, forty-eight minutes and is so crammed with...."stuff"...that boredom seems impossible. Synaptic hemorrhaging, maybe, and a lot of such "stuff" is going to go right over your head, but it's so filled with detail—such as writerly nuance—that one can just absorb the layer of adjectival meticulousness until the next funny-bone prod comes along.

Call it a soufflé, if you will, filled with different textures and flavors, that might not be recognized as one is gorging on it, but might pop up with recognition when contemplated as a grand meal.