The French Dispatch
The staff of an American magazine based in France puts out its last issue, with stories featuring an artist sentenced to life imprisonment, student riots, and a kidnapping resolved by a chef.
- Released: 2021-10-21
- Runtime: 108 minutes
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Stars: Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson, Timothée Chalamet, Léa Seydoux, Mathieu Amalric, Lyna Khoudri, Steve Park, Liev Schreiber, Elisabeth Moss, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Lois Smith, Saoirse Ronan, Christoph Waltz, Cécile de France, Guillaume Gallienne, Jason Schwartzman, Tony Revolori, Rupert Friend, Henry Winkler, Bob Balaban, Hippolyte Girardot, Anjelica Huston, Denis Ménochet, Alex Lawther, Vincent Lacoste, Benjamin Lavernhe, Vincent Macaigne, Félix Moati, Wallace Wolodarsky, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne, Stéphane Bak, Anjelica Bette Fellini, Lily Taïeb, Mohamed Belhadjine, Nicolas Avinée, Winsen Ait Hellal, Toheeb Jimoh, Larry Pine, Tom Hudson, Jarvis Cocker, Bruno Delbonnel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Damien Bonnard, Morgane Polanski, Antonia Desplat, Sam Haygarth, Pablo Pauly
- Director: Wes Anderson
Comments
- thadeusgreyson - 11 December 2022
Clever, funny, and distant all at once
I don't think Wes Anderson's films are for everyone, and for me they are intellectually funny and clever but in a way that occasionally makes me just smile. And while they are a pleasant change from standard Hollywood fare, pleasant is as good as it gets. There is no emotional involvement in the characters or the plot.
The cast assembled are great actors, and some bring very memorable performances such as Benicio del Toro and Léa Seydoux, but ultimately I felt I was looking at a pantomime play, and with the staging and pseudo freeze frames combined with a narration that both serves as humorous counterpoint and story propelling element, this feels like entertainment for the temporal lobes.
But making a person smile consistently throughout a film is a worthwhile achievement.
