Wes Anderson in a nutshell

Rating: 8/10 (1 May 2014)

Wes Anderson possesses a completely rare among American filmmakers gift of having his own style of making movies. Even though plot of each of them is constructed very carefully, he treats all characters with equal dose of care. In fact, their peculiar personalities have become a kind of trademark of Anderson's storytelling. This feature could be even noticed in his Oscar nominated "Fantastic Mr. Fox", which, even though had children as target audience, still managed to convey his characteristic style. Anderson's the latest movie is not an exception.
Even though his movies do not belong to high budget genres, Anderson always manages to collect impressive staff of experienced and famous actor. And so we have Ralph Fiennes as Mr. Gustave, a concierge of the title hotel, and Mustafa Zero, his newly-appointee lobby boy. The duo is thrown into a middle of shaking their calm existence events, when it turns out that the hotel's deceased owner, Madame D., leaves in the concierge's possession an invaluable painting, which for Mr. Gustave becomes both of chance for economic and source of hatred deriving from ravenous Madame D's son, who tries to take it back at all cost.
The main plot, which is filled with authentically hilarious gags, wonderfully develops a relationship between the duo of Mr. Gustave and Zero. During the plot's progress, it changes from conversations typical for relation between worker and employer to something more like fellowship. Moreover, thanks to great performance of Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori, the relationship is both of pleasantly amusing and poignant. Adrien Brody successfully breaks with his amiable image in order to create a completely grotesque character. It's also heartwarming to see F. Murray Abraham, who, after many years of performing in questionable quality movies, once again gives an performance in movie worthy of his talent.
Although the it is not the best movie of Wes Anderson, it does successfully maintain his image of one of the most interesting and talented filmmakers of modern times. The idea of filming using different angles is quite interesting. The nowadays events are filmed by wide-angled lens, while the past is shown in 4:3 format, which wonderfully helps in conveying specific mood of the movie. Moreover, the director's kind of humor once again does not fail. Not only the jokes are amusing, but also very clever and unpredictable.
I hope Wes Anderson will manage to maintain his exquisite style and not once entertain his viewers with his wit accuracy and creativity.