Prolly just me

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2014)

It's a Wes Anderson movie. So, there the whimsy, there's the ensemble, and there's the prose (and what beautiful prose it is).
The ensemble - Ralph Fiennes, F Murray Abraham (we need more), Jude Law, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Harvey Keitel, Léa Seydoux (unrecognizable, and sans any close-ups), Tilda Swinton (unrecognizable), Tom Wilkinson, Mathieu Amalric, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzmann - though most of them are glorified cameos at best, and not all are utilized well, but that's a small complaint since the tale's sumptuous enough to ensure ignoring that your favorite actor doesn't have all the good scenes or all the best lines.
The production design's perfect and makes the period come alive, making the sumptuous 35mm cinematography perfect (while I was wishing that 35mm and 70mm gimmick could've been done away with, so that the widescreen aspect could have been consistent throughout).
One thing I did not get - why did it have to be fictional country? Who is Wes trying not to offend? I don't know if I missed something there.
I also did not get the point of the multiple narrative-within-narrative structure used within the context of the movie. Felt like it was a device that was just used because it caught the screenwriter's whim/fancy, without there being any need to be relevant, or contextual. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of most of Anderson's work, and whimsy in general, but this was more in terms of just being put there for effect, nothing else, like the 35mm/70mm toggle, which also served no point except to ensure you got it that this one was not of the same period, which is clear enough without it having to be drummed in,, and losing out on the benefits of the widescreen aspect (I might've already covered it, but what the heck, I'm irritated whenever I think of it - what a friggin' waste).
All in all, definitely not for the mainstream audience, and even for Indie audiences, and Wes Anderson fans, if you're particular about a few aspects of film-making be prepared not to take the majority opinion online at its face value, and to be (kinda, not all the way) let down.