I love Wes Anderson and it was impossible for me not to love this movie as well. He is an auteur director--you would have no trouble identifying this as his work even if you didn't know he had done it, because it has his unique pacing and sense of comedy stamped all over it. The sheer volume of great actors that appear in it--Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinson, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Willem DeFoe, Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton to name a few--shoudl be a hint that actors find him enjoyable to work with. There are many small parts amongst a couple of larger parts, and all of these actors are capable of carrying the lead role, but choose to be in a movie where they are just a small part of the overall story.
The story itself is almost secondary to the atmosphere that Anderson creates, which is an odd combination of slapstick comedy viewed as if it is within a snow globe. The owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel, a decaying skeleton of it's former glorious self, is relaying the story of how he came to own the hotel. It is not a happy story nor is the ending one that is uplifting, but the viewer cannot help but laugh early and often at the antics of each exaggerated character. If you love Anderson's work you will not be disapointed, if you do not know his work, this is a good place to start, and if you don't, well, too bad, because this is what is fun about movies.
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