Wes anderson french dispatch reviews11/25/2023 ![]() Howitzer’s sole instruction to his writers is to ‘make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose’. ![]() Providing some narrative glue between the three unconnected kinda-short-films are editorial meetings that introduce, among others, Elisabeth Moss as a dead-eyed copy editor (and at which, implausibly, not a single journalist asks for a deadline extension – although, in fairness, there is one preposterous expenses claim). It’s run with suave elan and a deeply liberal approach to word count by American expat editor-in-chief, Arthur Howitzer Jr (Bill Murray, channelling Charles Foster Kane after a four-hour lunch). Structurally, The French Dispatch is a giant turducken of a thing: an anthology of three ‘feature articles’ parcelled together under the masthead of the titular French-based publication. The richness of its world-building is a delight, as ever, but the heart that elevated Moonrise Kingdom is not in such ready evidence here, nor the sharp wit and effervescent storytelling of The Grand Budapest Hotel. It’s the Paris-based, American-born auteur’s loving tribute to his adopted country, and to thinky, sophisticated magazines like ‘The New Yorker’, but its effort to cram a movie into a ‘zine structure finds the gap too wide to bridge. ![]() Much easier to admire and appreciate than it is to fall head over heels for, The French Dispatch has Wes Anderson in full megamix mode as he packs three short stories into an anthology structure that bubbles with flamboyance and ideas, before keeling over under the weight of own narrative cargo. ![]()
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