The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on February 2, 2015 @ tonymacklin.net.

Even a squirrelly director finds a nut once in a while.

With The Grand Budapest Hotel, director Wes Anderson proves that hoary adage.

In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson climbs down from his wayward tree to meet and greet a broad audience.

The Grand Budapest Hotel has received 9 Oscar nominations, including Anderson for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. It also got a Best Picture nomination.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is not a "must-see," but neither is it a "stay-away." One doesn't have to be a member of the Wes Anderson secret club to enjoy it.

The Grand Budapest Hotel still is an acquired taste, but it should satisfy more palates than Anderson has in the past.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is fanciful, but not fatuous. It is lively, not lugubrious. It has some unexpected pleasures, and it is grandly stylized. Most of all, it has a briskness that elevates it.

Much of the briskness is due to the peppery performance of Ralph Fiennes.

Anderson employs members of his regular troupe, but Bill Murray has only a wisp of an appearance, not a slab of ham. And the inchoate Jason Schwartzman is limited to a minor role.

The remarkable Fiennes has effervescent appeal as the eccentric hotel concierge M. Gustave. Tony Revolori, as Zero the lobby boy, earnestly plays the straight-man (straight-boy) to his not-so-straight mentor.

F. Murray Abraham adds touching humanity, as the one-time lobby boy who tells the story of the history of the now nearly deserted Hotel and its iconic concierge to a guest who is a writer (Jude Law).

The women add a touch of romance. Tilda Swinton is, of course, memorable in her brief appearances as the dowager. And Saoirse Ronan is fine as the baker's aide who is simple but mysterious.

The look of the film is expansive and entrancing.

At times, Anderson exhibits a discrete sensibility that adds to the effect. The two most dire events in the film are only reported, not shown on screen. Humanity abides.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a Wes Anderson film, so one isn't able to recommend it to everyone.

But it seems in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson does prevail.

He captured a nut bobbing in the mainstream.

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