The French Dispatch (2021)

If someone isn’t a Wes Anderson fan, I imagine they’d hate this film with a passion. I am a fan and I loved it. It has extreme levels of everything that makes up his best works: bright colors, quirky characters, ambiguous time setting, subtle references that don’t overwhelm. The editor of The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, Bill Murray, dies suddenly and the staff, which includes many Anderson regulars, works to publish one final edition. Four of the articles that are included in this edition comprise the vignettes that make up the majority of the film. I adored all of them on their own, though the first one is a bit shorter and simpler than the others. Those three twist and turn down, back and forth in their narrative but still manage to deliver a thorough narrative. There’s so much to see that I’ll need to watch it a number of times to absorb it all. It’s rather fitting with its French setting that it is reminiscent of a Tati film both implicitly and explicitly while still being uniquely Wes.