The French Dispatch: Anderson’s Art Nouveau Cardboard Box Fort

By Ed Streatfield Originally Published in Issue 17.5 on 15 November 2021

Wes Anderson is back with an abundantly talented cast and a delectable medley of pastiche postmodernism. An ode to the New York Chronicle and “a love letter to journalists”, The French Dispatch is an anthology film cataloguing the final issue of the fictional newspaper the Kansas Evening Sun.

If you are already familiar with Anderson’s style, you know exactly what you’re getting into: pastel colour schemes, symmetrically staged shots, art nouveau stylisation and deadpan delivery. After The Royale Tenenbaums, the last exploration of genuine character and emotion, Anderson has sunk further into his stylised world. Notably, in the latter half of his career, he has explored the avenues of animation that his live-action films replicate as he desperately runs further away from the real. Each prop, actors included, function in a grandfather clock mechanism - each gear clicking into place to serve the almost authoritarian formation of his aesthetics. Although his staging, cinematography and set design are steadily accumulating in technical prowess across his career, it comes at the expense of any emotional engagement with the characters. This reoccurring observation of Anderson’s work runs true with The French Dispatch.

Although a plethora of prolific actors adorns this film, I can’t help but feel that actors love to work with Anderson due to the lack of emotional depth that’s required of them. It provides an extremely easy check to cash in, along with the added prestige of Anderson’s name. That being said, Benicio Del Toro as a modern artist and double homicide prisoner was by far the most impressive and hilarious section of the film.

Displaying impressive utilisations of tableau vivant, montage, gliding steady cams, varying aspect ratios and colour schemes, Anderson’s stylisation is impressively fine-tuned. Unfortunately, as the film progresses with each new story, it becomes increasingly bogged down in an assault of bafflement - like a cake with an excessive amount of pink icing. Timothee Chalamet’s story arc as the head of a student protest movement, recounted by Frances McDormand, is comical in its separated commentary of politics through a chess game with the police played through the barricades. However, in the final act of the film, which transforms into animation, the assault of bourgeois opulence is so tiering, that you feel cheated by the fact you were so initially invested in the magic of the world. Ironically, the most amount of genuine emotion shown within The French Dispatch is contained within the animated sequence, which was possibly intentional. As Mark Kermode said, “postmodernism means you never have to say you’re sorry”. While not as technically impressive as The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch remains fun and charming, however sickly.

Rating: 7/10

The French Dispatch is available in cinemas now.