Best effort by Wes Anderson since The Royal Tennenbaums

Rating: 9/10 (24 January 2015)

I avoided this movie when it came out, since the last two films I've seen of director Wes Anderson, The Light Aquatic and the Darjeeling Limited, were utterly terrible. Only with the recent multiple Oscar nominations of this movie, I decide to give this a chance. And guess what: it is a great movie, his best since the Royal Tennenbaums. Set mostly in the 1930s in a fictional Central European state (the film was mostly shot in Southern Germany) - though with a nifty introduction from the 1960s that frames the narrative with Jude Law and F. Murray Abraham - the Grand Hotel Budapest tells the story of the said hotel - one in the classical European style - that is run by the concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) helped by the bellboy Zero (Tony Revolori)
Fiennes is great as Gustave, a cultured, suave womanizer specialized in wooing elderly ladies who sees himself as a beacon of civilization in an age of increasing barbarism. When one of his "customers" (Tilda Swinton) dies and decides to give part of her inheritance to Mustafa, her two psycho sons (Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe) will left no stone unturned in trying not to give others what they think is rightfully theirs.
This movie has an impressive all star cast. Along with those already named, we also have Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Saoirse Ronan, Mathieu Amalric and (in smaller roles), Bill Murray, Lea Seydoux, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzmann. And Anderson's mannerisms and eccentricities are not so off putting here (well, maybe with exceptions, like what does the mole with the size of Mexico in Saoirse Ronan means?). Inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig.