Directed by Wes Anderson
Written by Wes Anderson, story by Roman Coppola and Hugo Guinness
Starring everyone, including, but not limited to: Timothée Chalamet, Léa Seydoux, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Benicio Del Toro, Jeffrey Wright, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody
Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes
Rated R

by Audrey Callerstrom, Associate Editor and Staff Writer

Wes Anderson has been on something of a winning streak since 2009. In 2009 he ventured into animation with Fantastic Mr. Fox, a fun and vibrant caper, and then released his love letter to childhood misfits with Moonrise Kingdom in 2012. In 2014 we had The Grand Budapest Hotel, about a lobby boy and his concierge mentor who work in a legendary candy-colored hotel. In 2018 he returned to animation with Isle of Dogs, a funny, charming tribute to, well, dogs (say the title out loud). So, that’s four good or very good films within the span of 11 years.

In The French Dispatch, an American literary magazine called The French Dispatch, formerly Picnic, reports on French art, politics, cuisine, and culture. It is run by Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray), who tries to curb the more eccentric and morbid tendencies from his writers. When Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) writes about the city of Ennui, where The French Dispatch offices reside, he talks of rats, vagrants, streetwalkers, and bodies floating in the canal. Arthur pleads, “couldn’t you add some flowers?” Sazerac responds, “No. I hate flowers.”

Sazerac’s bicycle tour of Ennui is the film’s, and the magazine’s, first segment (each story is separated by the magazine’s theme, plus their designated number of pages). Complete with a beret, Sazerac bikes around detailing the history of every borough of the city. It’s an amusing, albeit brief, sequence that showcases Wilson’s charm.

The next segment, “Arts and Artists,” features Tilda Swinton as J.K.L. Berensen, an art critic addressing an audience to discuss the work of artist and convict Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio Del Toro). While Del Toro showcases his ability for understated comedy, the scenes of Swinton are grating. She simulates an exaggerated overbite and wears veneers like she wore in Snowpiercer. Complete with a slight speech impediment, it feels like she’s channeling that same character, at least physically. The story has some charm, particularly when a prison guard, Simone (Lea Seydoux) takes pity on Moses and continues to pose nude for him, but it starts to drag. There’s something that doesn’t fit in this story of an imprisoned artist, his muse, and his greedy broker, played by Adrien Brody. It embraces the setting, and Del Toro gets an opportunity to show his range, but it seems to end in chaos not because it should, but because it was the easy choice.

The third segment is the “Politics and Poetry” section, which follows Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) as she documents a group of young revolutionaries led by a 19-year-old named Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet). While the story is a little all over the map, even for Anderson, McDormand and Chalamet keep it grounded. They feel human, and not like caricatures. They don’t overact, like Swinton and Brody, who try to lace every line with giddy, self-satisfied energy. Even if the story trends zany, the performances are subdued. Chalamet is an appropriate fit for Anderson. On his first meeting with Lucinda, Zeffirelli is in the bath, and he remarks, “I feel shy about my new muscles.” McDormand and Chalamet have chemistry in their scenes. Unlike the other writers, we get a small peak into who Lucinda is as a person. She’s single, has no kids, and is sensitive about comments that she is an “old maid.” There is a sadness in her eyes well before the tear gas leaks into the window and makes her mascara run.

The final segment, “Tastes and Smells,” starts with a promising TV interview of writer Roebuck Wright (Jeffery Wright), who has a “typographic memory” and can recount every word of every piece he’s ever written. While Wright’s voice makes him a good narrator, and the TV studio is decorated in thick stripes of blue, white, and olive green, it’s contrasted with yet another black-and-white story that fails to be amusing. The French Dispatch is one of Anderson’s most congested films, stuffing in actors that normally take lead roles so they can say a couple inessential lines (Elisabeth Moss plays an editor, Willem Dafoe an inmate, etc). Even when they turn outrageous, like Wright’s visit to a French commissaire (Mathieu Amalric), it’s still dull, visually and thematically. Anderson doesn’t know how to work in black and white. This might give him the opportunity to go beyond surface level, and explore deeper themes, without relying on quirk, but that’s never been among his strengths.

Early scenes of Ennui, which show tall, concrete buildings with exposed staircases, look like visual advent calendars. There are multiple places within the frame to see where movement will take place next, even if we’re looking at which is essentially a grid, but these striking visuals get lost as the stories begin. With the exception of “Politics and Poetry,” the stories and characters in The French Dispatch are lifeless and impersonal. If this is Wes Anderson’s “love letter” to The New Yorker, then, well, you will enjoy it, if you love, in equal measure, every Wes Anderson film as well as The New Yorker.