The Grand Budapest Hotel **** (2014, Ralph Fiennes, F Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Jude Law, Bill Murray) – Movie Review

Writer-director Wes Anderson’s supremely quirky and lusty comic tale of the adventures of legendary hotel concierge Gustave H and his trusted lobby boy friend Zero Moustafa is incredibly stylish and eye-catching. Wow, it looks great!

In a tour-de-force, Ralph Fiennes gives the most exuberant and flamboyant of performances as M Gustave and Tony Revolori is just right in a loyal support turn as Zero. Like the film, Fiennes shows off his brilliant technique to great effect, but is less good at actually being funny. Fiennes is such a brilliant technical actor that he can act being funny, without unfortunately being one of those lucky folks with funny bones. Less good, far less good actors, are simply funny as soon as they appear on screen.

But, weirdly, this is one comedy that doesn’t entirely depend on being funny to be clever and appealing. The guy sitting next to me was chuckling throughout. I didn’t laugh out loud once, but I was smiling somewhere deep down within all the way through.

There’s an enormous number of cameos from trendy actors, most of them appearing to little effect unfortunately. Jude Law’s Young Writer, to whom the story’s told by the old Zero, makes little impression, though F Murray Abraham does manage to in their scenes together. Anderson’s regulars Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson are just there, seemingly appearing on screen just for iconic reasons.

A lot of favourite players like Edward Norton (sounding very phony as Henckels), Tilda Swinton (hardly recognisable as the 84-year-old dowager Madame D), Saorise Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Tom Wilkinson, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Fisher Stevens are also just there on screen like moving wallpaper. They all just come and go. It’s nice, it’s fine, but you don’t want greatly to admire these appearances much or pay them any real attention.

This leaves Robert D. Yeoman’s cinematography and Adam Stockhausen and Anna Pinnock’s inter-war period production designs as the main heroes of the movie. This a nine-Oscar-nominated film, including Best Motion Picture, Best Achievement in Directing and Best Original Screenplay, and any Oscar wins going should certainly be in the direction of the Oscar-nominated cinematography and production design. Interestingly, with all the acting going on so furiously in The Grand Budapest Hotel, there are no Oscar nominations for acting.

In the event, it won four Oscars – for Best Achievement in Production Design (Adam Stockhausen for production design and Anna Pinnock for set decoration), Best Achievement in Music (Alexandre Desplat), Best Achievement in Costume Design (Milena Canonero) and Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling (Frances Hannon, Mark Coulier).

For all its shortcomings, mainly in the belly-laughs department, it’s a civilised, attractive entertainment, somehow old-fashioned and new-fangled at the same time. I can see people loving it, even if I can only admire it. I did feel a bit bad that I didn’t like it more. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. It at least deserves that.

Why spend all that time and money on transforming Tilda Swinton into an 80something when they could have employed Angela Lansbury?

Wes Anderson’s other quirky films include Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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