Big budget, big cast, big disappointment

Rating: 2/10 (12 March 2014)

As with RUSHMORE, DARJEELING, MOONRISE KINGDOM, ZISSOU, etc., GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is all style, no substance. I would say it's cinema for cinema's sake, but this isn't even cinematic, it's just desperately visual. There are zero ideas. Every scene strikes the same note. The characters are mannered and empty of interest. There's some visual wit, but almost no verbal wit. Wes Anderson, the mysteriously admired director, seems to have gotten all his skills from watching sketch comedy on TV. Weird people, weird situations, weird visuals-- that seems to be enough for him. He uses an inner circle of friends/ actors, and often chooses to feature people who aren't even actors in lead roles (that includes the expressionless Jason Schwartzman who, happily for the audience, has only a minor role in this film). Actors who really need direction, e.g. Edward Norton and Adrien Brody, languish in Anderson's hands.
As for plot and content: If Anderson is aware of what Central Europe was like as Hitler rose to power, he shows no indication of it beyond the trappings-- costumes, set design, both of which are very good, as is the music. Indeed, Alexandre Desplat's score provides the only feeling the movie has. GRAND BUDAPEST is superficial from the first frame to the last-- and an insult to Stefan Zweig. If you see it, watch for the fake Egon Schiele painting, "Two Lesbians Masturbating," and ask yourself, why? Why that subject? My guess: because Schiele is still, almost 100 years after his death, a radical painter-- an adjective Anderson would like applied to himself, though he is really only pretentious, delivering well-funded displays of superficial eye candy.