Wes Anderson at the top of his game

Rating: 8/10 (9 October 2014)

Wes Anderson's latest cinematic confection, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," is a quirky, surrealistic comedy set at a mountain resort run by a concierge named M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and a "lobby boy" named Zero Mustafa (Tony Revolori), whom M. Gustave has taken under his wings to train in the art of service.
Set in a fictional country, the movie begins in 1968, when the Grand Budapest Hotel is just a shadow of its former self, having been allowed to fall into disrepair and currently inhabited by a small contingent of eccentric tenants. One of them is a writer (Tom Wilkinson) who discovers that Mustafa (F. Murray Abraham) is now the owner of the once-proud establishment. The elder Mustafa regales him with stories of an earlier time in the hotel's history - the 1930s, in fact - when the palatial inn played host to only the richest and most aristocratic of occupants and guests.
Through dual-narrated flashbacks, then, Anderson weaves a smart and cheeky tale of an enduring friendship that triumphs over class division, a tale that combines wit with imagination and social commentary with visual elegance, set against the writer/director's trademarked air of heightened unreality. When he isn't fulfilling his duties as hotel concierge, the foppish M. Gustave, fastidious in manner and with a poetic quote for every occasion, offers his "personal" services exclusively to blond, fabulously wealthy and emotionally insecure dowagers, one of whom bequeaths to him a priceless painting upon her sudden death. This surprising turn-of-events puts him at odds with a veritable army of the deceased woman's outraged relatives. This leads to a stolen art treasure, a false conviction for murder, a daring prison break and a mad race to stay one step ahead of the pursuing authorities, as M. Gustave endeavors to prove his innocence.
To enhance the dreamlike nature of the material, the look of the film is marked by whimsical art direction and ultra-stylized framing. Even the dimensions of the screen change with the time period of the story - traditional square for the scenes set in 1932 and widescreen for those that take place in 1968.
In addition to the splendid deadpan performances of Fiennes, Abraham and newcomer Revolori in the key roles, the movie provides a veritable sea of familiar faces in supporting and bit parts, many of them members of Anderson's repertory company: Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton and Owen Wilson, among others.
"The Grand Budapest Hotel" finds Mr. Anderson in peak form.