Delightfully whimsical comedy adventure, with great design and fun performances

Rating: Null/10 (6 March 2016)

I watch a lot of short films and you can tell that Wes Anderson has very much made an impact on up and coming filmmakers due to how often you see people trying to make what they call 'a Wes Anderson style film'. Watching these film is mostly interesting because of how often these efforts fall short. It is a reminder to me of how hard it actually is to do 'whimsy'. To make it work, you not only need to make it happen, but you also need to do it in a way that gets the audience into the space they need to be in so as to be able to enjoy it; without this it is often just annoying.
I was thinking of this because GBH is a great example of this working. This is not to say it is brilliant cinema, because in the end it is a whimsical piece but it does do it really well. The structure itself tells you where you are, because this is a film that opens with a girl paying respects at the bust of a dead author, who we then jump to as he starts to tell the story that was told to him by another man – a story which is also that of a story being told – and it is this story which we see for the most part. It is a structure that allows for the exaggeration and elaboration of all told stories, and it allows us to go with the sheer silliness of the tale. I say silliness, but actually the film keeps a lot which actually engages in the adventure plot, but yet at the same time delivers enough decadence and invention to allow us to enjoy it as a piece of fun.
The cast match this. In many films it would be a real distraction to have so many famous faces in one film, however here it works – again because the audience are mostly positioned just to go with whatever. Fiennes is the beating heart of the film, and if he does not make his character work then the whole thing would struggle; as it is, he makes it work really well, with such color and flourish. Revolori is equally good, and needs to be since the friendship and his link to the presence (or plural) is also critical to making it work. The rest of the cast contain so many famous names doing small but enjoyable turns that it is pointless to name them all – but they all add to the whimsy rather than overwhelm it. Technically the film is a beauty, with great shots, great design through, and a sense of second-hand wonder which fits the story-telling structure.
All told, it is a quite wonderful piece of silly adventure. It works because it knows itself, and it delivers itself really well in a way that draws the viewer into the space we need to be in to really go with it. This is not easy to do, and Anderson does it really well here.