Nice To See This Director Hitting His Stride

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2015)

I usually don't like Wes Anderson films but I truly enjoyed this one. I understand what Anderson has been trying to do by creating self contained worlds for a story to be told, but I found his past efforts failed because the set design and acting were simply not good enough. For this type of thing to work everything has to be 100% great. Most of the previous productions were OK and a person could sit there and enjoy playing make pretend, but to realize such a peculiar individual vision everything must be spot on. In Grand Budapest Hotel there seem to have been no holds barred and it's obvious that a greater than usual amount of effort went into its realization. Every bit of the story has many layers of narration that depend upon each other to tell the tale, and the viewer has a fantastic time connecting all the bits together. It's fun to watch this film and it presents beautifully. It's nice to see this director hitting his stride.