Written by Alice Rose.
Wes Anderson succeeds once again with The Grand Budapest Hotel. Quirky, exhilarating and hilarious; you won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen.
Inspired by the writing of Stefan Zweig, the film is a story within a story, and is set up in three prologues which all connect together.
In the first prologue we are shown a magnificent hotel in the fictional country of Zubrowka. There we meet concierge Monsieur Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes) and his faithful lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori).
Gustave decides to take on Zero and mentor him, which quickly turns on its head after Gustave finds out his recent love, Madame D (Tilda Swinton) has been murdered.
In her will, Madame D has left a priceless painting to Gustave; Boy with Apple. Her sinister son, Dimitri (Adrien Brody), is furious with this decision and is determined Gustave will get nothing. At this point everything turns to chaos, as it is believed Gustave murdered her. The rest of the film follows him and Zero as they try to clear Gustave’s name and find out what really happened.
Every detail in the film is absolutely meticulous. As fans of Anderson may already know, he loves attention to detail, to the point of him using the same Futura font in each of his films.
Even the architecture in the film doesn’t go without Anderson’s meticulous detail. We’re taken to a dank prison, a brightly-coloured bakery and a huge museum, amongst many other places.
With every setting it also seems that a cheeky cameo appearance occurs. A wide variety of actors, such as Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Jude Law make brief appearances in the film.
Each character in the film has their own quirky personality and burst to life. Ralph Fiennes is excellent as Gustave, bringing out a wonderfully witty and charming side to the character that you can’t help but love.
All in all, The Grand Budapest Hotel takes some majestic settings, a huge array of actors; a hilarious action packed storyline and brings them all together perfectly. A must see.