“It’s so incredibly strong and different… the way that Wes is expanding his talents to another dimension with each film is just wow. “I saw the finished version of The French Dispatch quite a while ago, and it’s just amazing,” Desplat said. The film will reportedly be set in both 1950s Paris and the fictional commune of Ennui-sur-Blasé.ĭiscussing the film in a May 2020 interview with IndieWire, Alexandre Desplat, a regular composer for Anderson’s films, called it the most ambitious thing the director had ever done. It’s going to be interesting to see how Anderson crams them all into a 108-minute film… What is the plot of The French Dispatch?Ī short synopsis for The French Dispatch reads: “The film is a love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th Century French city and brings to life a collection of stories published in ‘The French Dispatch’ magazine.” Right, it’s roll call time:ĭo you want more? Good, because all this lot are due to make an appearance in the film, too: Saoirse Ronan, Cécile de France, Elisabeth Moss, Morgane Polanski, Willem Dafoe, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, Alex Lawther, Rupert Friend, Jason Schwartzman, Fisher Stevens, Henry Winkler and many, many more - you can find the full cast list (so far!) on The French Dispatch‘s growing the IMDB listing. I enjoyed myself during stretches, was getting frustrated during other stretches, and I hope Anderson focuses more on the big picture of his next picture.True to form, Anderson has assembled an all-star cast for his next movie. If you're new to the idiosyncratic world of indie film's most precise curator, then I'd advise starting with a more digestible and earlier Anderson entry. If you're already a fan, by all means, step into The French Dispatch. ![]() ![]() Each of them has the requisite charm and random asides we've come to expect from Anderson, including a leotard-wearing strongman that is called upon by the police to help during the hostage crisis, but it felt more like a collection of overlong short films than a cohesive whole. The third segment follows Jeffrey Wright recounting an assignment where he investigated a master police chef (not "chief") and gets in the middle of a wacky hostage negotiation. The second segment follows Frances McDormand as she investigates a Parisian student union revolting against the ignorant powers that be. The first and best segment follows Tilda Swinton discussing a heralded but imprisoned experimental artist (Benicio del Toro) who is dealing with the pressure to produce. This is not the most accessible Anderson movie for a newbie it's very bourgeois in the kinds of people it follows, the stories it pursues, and the intellectual and political conflicts it demonstrates. ![]() It's occasionally so arch and droll that it feels too removed from actual comedy. Perhaps that is Anderson's wry, subtle point considering the entire journalistic voice of the movie feels like somebody made a movie in the style of one of those esoteric, supposedly "funny" New Yorker cartoons. I was amused throughout but each felt like a short film that had been pushed beyond its breaking point. This narrative decision limits the emotional involvement and I found myself growing restless with each of the three segments. The French Dispatch is structured like you're watching the issue of a news magazine come to visual life, meaning that the two-hour movie is comprised of mainly three lengthy vignettes and a couple of short asides. Wes Anderson's latest quirk-fest is his usual cavalcade of straight-laced absurdity, exquisite dollhouse-level production design, famous faces popping in for droll deadpans, and the overall air of not fully getting it.
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