REVIEW: The charm of 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'

MANILA, Philippines - Just as the title suggests, everything about Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel is grand and even decadent, lavish and beautiful.

Narrated with an oddly stylish pace that is rare in modern cinema, this topsy-turvy comedy/caper film infuses Anderson’s dollhouse-like vibrancy with a rather refreshing feel of emotional resonance.

The Texas-born Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom, The Darjeeling Limited) shows his undeniable affinity towards cinematic playfulness in Hotel. From the elaborate escapes to the deadpan gags to the French literary device Mise en abyme (story within a story, within another story), Anderson never fails to induce smiles without having to abide by the normal comedic formula that is overused today.

We start with a young lady visiting the tomb of a celebrated man known simply as The Author. After some pondering in front of the concrete edifice, the young lady opens a book entitled “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (presumably written by The Author), and starts reading an excerpt from one of the chapters.

Then cut to the year 1985, where The Author himself (Tom Wilkinson) continues the excerpt while speaking to a camera as he talks about that fateful day when he stayed in the titular hotel. Then cut to the year 1968, where a younger version of The Author (Jude Law) continues the narrative as he grows a nagging curiosity towards the elusive owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel, a harrowing old man named Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). The two share dinner as the bearded hotel owner recounts his tale of how he came to acquire ownership of such an old and expensive institution.

And so we cut to the year 1932 (the screen noticeably changes to a more storybook-like cinematography) as we follow the exploits of the young Zero (Tony Revolori), working as a lobby boy under the tutelage of the legendary concierge Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes). Right away you will notice the fluidity of Fiennes and Revolori’s on-screen chemistry. Playing as the proverbial “boy meets world under the wings of an old mentor” with comic panache, these two lead characters serve as the glue that sticks the plot together, no matter how zany or bonkers things might get (and boy they will).

With the death of an 84-year-old admirer named Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), Gustave and his willful young cohort travel across the fictional European republic of Zubrowka in the midst of a Nazi-inspired war to pay their respects. What follows is a roller coaster of an adventure that includes stolen Renaissance art, contract hits, prison breaks, hotel shootouts, and lots of slapstick comedy you would expect someone getting whacked in the face at any moment.

Fiennes’ comedic prowess is something to behold. His sensational performance as Gustave exudes zealous charm and an athletic command over dialogue and timing. Anderson wisely surrounds Fiennes’ character with a motley crew of lovers, criminals, liars, and degenerates. And it just so happens that all these characters are played by acting powerhouses that could very well star in their own movies – Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Harvey Keitel, Willem Defoe, and the list goes on.

The American director loves to pack his movies with color. In Hotel, the palette composes of a regal splash of purple, an elegant shade of pink, and just the right amount of blood red. The early shots of the hotel interior echoes the illusory atmosphere of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shinning which, ironically, makes Anderson’s canvas a warm painting to look at – so warm that the prettiness helps establish the thoughtful message looming underneath the paint. And that message is simple: the past will always hold a firm grip on who we are today.

The characters are not playing for laughs and we never feel that they are joking – which makes the humor, anchored by Anderson’s precise and constricted camerawork, all the more effective. Hotel’s brand of laughter reminds me of the black-and-white classics of Ernst Lubitsch – there is an air of eruditeness and silliness at the same time.

And as the film nears its conclusion, the old Moustafa reflects on his mentor’s irony: "To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it. But, I will say: he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace!"

And the same can be said about Anderson’s ballsy attempt to conjure a style that is utterly his own.

5 out 5 stars