Wes Anderson lays it on thick in this film, and I ate it all up. His usual bizarre-looking characters acting in bizarre manners. Filled with lots of cameos, and American actors mingling with British and Middle European actors with nobody even attempting to come up with a unified accent.
The kid who plays Zero is only 18 years old, and he really draws your attention. Because of his character, he has to stay straight-faced, so I hope that isn’t a reflection of his followup films.
Looking forward to it. Maybe it’ll be playing around here by June or so. :mad:
I saw it last week - a wonderful, wonderful film. Funny, touching, beautiful to look at, and surprisingly gruesome at times.
Loved the look of everything.
For those who are interested:
The town it was filmed in:
Designing props:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2014/march/grand-budapest-hotel
Saw it last night, I loved it. I love that wild, open imaginativeness, where all rules are gone.
The accents, as mentioned in the OP: loved that. There was a trailer for The Book Thief before the film, and I was immediately disappointed that they were speaking English with ridiculous accents. Why do they do that?! It ruins the whole film, makes it a mockery. But the way Anderson just creates this world of “Europe-ish”, with accents all over the place is so fun and imaginative that I didn’t doubt it for a second.
I also find it so impressive how he walks that line between being OTT and ridiculous, but still genuine and touching. I feel he balances that in quite a new way. Usually auteurs go from silliness to touching, he has both happening at once.
Art direction was of course phenomenal. I loved how recognisable the details were, how clearly it places you in the time and place while still being magical and silly. The horrid little white vases on the tables in the restaurant where the story is being told: anyone who has stayed in an out-of-date hotel in the Alps (or Germany) knows and abhors that style. I love how these small things connote a mountain of information, how they are so effectively used together to create a world that is simultaneously magical and believable.
The only thing I didn’t like was the snow chase scene. It was like the barrels on the river in The Hobbit. Ugly, gamey, and it didn’t fit with the style.
I loved it: the performances, the comedy and the sheer artifice of the direction.
In London, Secret Cinema is showing film as an immersive event. The audience dresses up in period costume and visits a fabulously recreated set complete with actors and performances before the film is screened.
While I admit it was a lot of fun, ultimately, it was for me a testament to gorgeous production design but had little emotional resonance. Certainly, it didn’t come close to tapping the vivid restless undercurrents of adolescence in Moonrise Kingdom or the ache of middle-aged angst like Rushmore. It is a frolic and an incredibly enjoyable one, but without a whole lot of depth or emotional dimension. It says something that the two most moving moments are both narrated off-screen and not actually depicted: The deaths of both Agatha and Gustave.
Heck, even The Fantastic Mr. Fox had a more effective narrative arc. Budapest is 90% incident and 10% drama. It is gorgeous to look at (I can’t imagine any film this year coming close to its meticulous artfulness in every set and landscape) and the music score is quite wonderful, too. So it’s not a bad film at all, and the acting across the board is uniformly good.
But I found it an emotionally distant experience. Nothing wrong with that. Anderson’s films often feel like the domain of a puppet master who overwhelms us with this hyper-stylized world. But there’s usually a character who provides some kind of emotional hook–Hackman in Tenenbaums, Blanchett & Dafoe in Aquatic–that breathes life into a world that’s otherwise pure artifice.
There was no such character here–the closest, for me, was adult Zero, but again, that’s just a function of narration since Abraham is not part of any of the actual action. So while it was a masterclass in what Anderson does most conspicuously, I ended up walking out wishing it amounted to something more. Still definitely worth seeing, though.
While I really liked many individual components, I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it and certainly not in the way I’ve enjoyed most of his movies.
Just, in the end, too precious.
I want to see it, but I’m afraid. Moonrise Kingdom was a sort of tipping point of Wes Anderson-y whimsy for me.
Critics have called his movies dioramas. Maybe with that in mind, I’ll find a way to digest the treacle.
I really liked it, but was taken by surprise that the Grand Budapest Hotel wasn’t, um, actually in Budapest!
Saw it yesterday. I liked it. It has taken me a while to warm up to Wes Anderson, but now I find him an entertaining diversion from my usual fair. I liked Moonrise Kingdom, and went back and watched Rushmore, and liked that.
In Budapest, I like the intricate sets, the unconventional cinematography and the music. I look forward to seeing it again to catch the things I missed. Apparently George Clooney has an uncredited cameo.
The Clevelander hotel is not in Cleveland, nor is this New Yorker hotel in New York. 
Its probably an old-school marketing thing to attract city-dwellers to choose a particular hotel when they go to a resort.
I saw it and liked it, but I’m a huge Wes Anderson fan. Yes, he’s very stylized, but I like his style. I didn’t think it was his best. Better than Darjeeling but not up there with the likes of Rushmore or Royal Tenenbaums. Just ultimately more forgettable but still worth a $6.50 matinee.
The cursing made me laugh and I loved the look of the sets and locations. I didn’t mind the sledding as it felt like Anderson was mocking those type of chase scenes. The only thing that really took me out of it was the fingers in the door.
Every Wes Anderson movie that comes along, I wonder if this is the time when I should give him another chance. I really enjoyed Royal Tenenbaums, enjoyed bits of Life Aquatic and was befuddled by other parts, profoundly disliked Darjeeling Limited, and was enraged and betrayed by Fantastic Mr. Fox.
His films are beautiful, but my tolerance for stories about middle-aged wealthy or middle-class ennui is very low.
There was actually very little of that in the movie. As far as I could tell, there was only one middle aged, middle class character in the movie, and he was quite content with his life.
For me, the emotional resonance came from viewing it as a story about fascism destroying the old, aristocratic culture of Europe. The film works as an indictment of fascism: the fascist characters are brutes, who create nothing and serve no one but themselves. They can only destroy and steal.
Thing is, though, the aristocratic world of Madame D, of scraping servants, strict hierarchies, and elaborate protocols of behavior, is almost as alienating to this American as jackbooted thugs beating up immigrants.
I found the movie charming, start to finish. I only wish Bill Murray had a bigger role in it.
That is a definite subtext, and I’m glad that he didn’t make it overtly political, but drew these strands out of the characterization and, in particular, the art direction. I didn’t find anything particularly emotional about this theme, though, since the true villains were exactly who you describe here:
The entitlements of the legacied and the lengths to which they will go to protect their interests are the real antagonists here. Eventually, that world will be consumed by larger political, belligerent interests, but the true conflict with the film isn’t with those bureaucrats, but the heirs of one woman.
C’mon, it pits two self-made, hardworking men (and Agatha, also honest and hardworking) against aristocratic entitlement and fascist gangsterism, that didn’t provide emotional resonance? To each their own, I know, it sure worked for me. The characters worked best as just stand-ins for various ideals, otherwise they’re a bit thin.
I just saw it and I complete agree with this. It was beautiful and sometimes amusing, but it was missing something and this, the last of someone to emotionally connect to, who makes the entire movie world seem more alive, was it.