The French Dispatch

Incredible cast, and Wes Anderson's style is always visually appealing, but the short stories that make up The French Dispatch fell flat for me. The attention to detail and sly references were great as a concept, but seemed overdone, to the detriment of evenness (or comprehension) in the plot and characters that I cared about. It needed a better script, one that was pruned down and had more heart. It was fantastic seeing all of these actors, though most are underused to say the least. Loved Jeffrey Wright in this though.

The French Dispatch is a French subsidiary of a Kansas newspaper. Every week it provides articles from renowned journalists. When the long-serving editor dies, as per his wishes The French Dispatch closes but not before a final edition. In it are four articles, details of which the film illustrates.

I generally enjoy Wes Anderson's films and have seen all of them with Rushmore, The Fantastic Mr Fox and The Royal Tenenbaums being my favourites. They tend to be quirkily funny but can be difficult to get into. With his recent films Anderson has also amped up the special effects and cinematography, making the films visually more stylish and art-like.

This is not a problem as long as the visual effects don't replace a good plot. With The French Dispatch, that's exactly where the problem lies.

We have a central story - the final edition of a newspaper - plus four sub-stories (the four articles) none of which prove to be very engaging. Things just happen, sometimes in very haphazard, random ways with no attempt to draw in the audience. While quirky, none of the stories are funny enough to make the film a comedy and carry it that way.

The cinematography and special effects are stunning but without a decent plot and level of engagement they're just nice-to-look-at images, bereft of meaning.

Also can't fault the cast which is heavily star-laden: Benicio Del Toro, Bill Murray (as always, for a Wes Anderson film), Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Lea Seydoux, Timothee Chalamet, Jeffrey Wright, Owen Wilson, Bob Balaban, Henry Winkler, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz, Alex Lawther, Liev Schreiber, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman. Such is the saturation of stars that some only appear for 20 seconds or so!

In many ways The French Dispatch feels like the most Wes Andersony movie you could ask for but despite it possessing all the little quirks, stylings and scattered goodness's of the beloved indie director, Anderson's latest star studded affair doesn't come close to becoming a film worthy of standing alongside the likes of Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums or The Grand Budapest Hotel.

His first "real life" film since 2014's Grand Budapest adventure, it at first appears as though we are in for another oddball delight as we are thrust into the world of Bill Murray's Arthur Howitzer, Jr.'s French Dispatch newspaper world filled with many of Anderson's greatest friends such as Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman and the initial voice over lead introduction to this eclectic universe of journalists, artists and deep thinkers seems to set things up for a colourful ride but this collation of stories loses steam quickly and becomes a film that is sure to divide the Anderson fan-base in unpredictable ways.

As an artistic endeavour, Dispatch is as glorious as we've come to expect from Anderson with black and white segments, animated detours, moving sets and witty scripting all making themselves known but there's a heart and soul missing here that's found in the best of Anderson's works and despite the attempt by Anderson to string everything here together under the guise of newspaper sections, there's not a particularly strong common thread binding the narrative of Dispatch into one cohesive whole with only the first segment featuring a wild eyed Benicio Del Toro as troubled inmate/painter Moses Rosenthaler really standing out in the memory once the credits roll.

While it might sound harsh and likely to not go down well with those Anderson fans that see the unique filmmaker as someone that can do no wrong, Dispatch's most glaring issue appears to be that Anderson has tried to out-Anderson himself and in doing so has turned his often winning formula into a washed down and bastardised caricature of itself, nothing really feels overly earned or earnest here and while Anderson may attempt to declare his film as a love letter to journalism and its many worthy figures, the film he has made never truly achieves its goal of honouring the art-form or its participants.

Final Say -

Always nice to look at and artistically as strong as you'd expect from a director with the track record of Anderson, The French Dispatch feels like one of his most forgettable films yet that fails to find its mojo around a collection of tales that never fly like the way you would've hoped they did.

2 1/2 prison based exhibitions out of 5

I suppose the gamble of any film told in a series of vignettes is to capture the rapt attention of your audience in one segment only to lose it in the next (see: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs).

None of the vignettes in The French Dispatch ever truly lost me, but one came close. And it's not to say that particular story was poorly written or directed or performed, it's simply that the one preceding it was so dazzling and fantastic I wasn't quite ready to move on from it.

Moving on is a large part of this film as it never stops marching forward both literally and figuratively. It has (a) large story(ries) to get through and if you can't keep up...sorry. No crying.

The French Dispatch is a film told in five parts. Three articles bookended by an introduction and an epilogue. These five pieces make up the final issue of the magazine titled (wait for it): The French Dispatch. We "read" the final issue by watching the articles unfold through Wes Anderson's beautiful, obsessive, whimsical lens.

Visually this is an Anderson film cranked to 11. The photogenic establishing shots, contrasting symmetry, and pastel color scheme of his entire career drenches every shot of this film. The picture beautifully shifts from black and white to color, and always at the perfect moment. His creative and effective use of animation and miniature sets are mesmerizing.

Basically if you don't like Anderson's style you're really, truly going to hate this movie, but your mind was probably already made up.

Seeing this in a theater packed full of micro-beanie, gold wire framed glasses wearing hipsters reminded me of why I don't typically like seeing Anderson's films on opening weekends. There is exactly one reason to ever talk during a movie, and that's if there is a fire, after that there is not one good reason to ever speak in a theater, especially if you're talking directly to the screen which a handful of these people did.

The French Dispatch is an excellent film and Anderson is an excellent filmmaker. I think his style and creativity are a much needed burst of originality on the canvas of filmmaking. It also just made me feel nice after watching The Last Duel, that movie stole a piece of my soul... I like unconventional filmmakers, I like divisive filmmakers, and even in his missteps, I'll continue to be excited by and support Wes Anderson.

Kansas Evening Sun is closing with the death of its editor. It has a foreign bureau in post-war Paris run by Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray) who has cultivated a stable of eccentric writers. This follows three of the articles. This is a Wes Anderson film.

This has the Wes Anderson cohorts with a few new members. The style is all him and I love it. I love Moses and Simone. I really like the first story. I wouldn't mind if that's the whole movie. The second story is interesting but Wes is essentially taking pot shots at young idealistic protesters. I kept thinking that some younger viewers are going yell out Boomer at the screen. It's trying to be humorous but it's missing that other point of view. The third story is the least interesting to me. I'm not sure if it's the structure or the actual story. I really lost interest by that point. I wish that this is a whole movie about Moses and his artistic adventures.