The French Dispatch; Grade: B
The French Dispatch as described in the synopsis by IMDB is a love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional twentieth century French city, that brings to life a collection of stories published in “The French Dispatch Magazine. These stories at hand are filled with adventure, uniqueness, and creativity.
Been waiting a long time for this new Wes Anderson creation following the fantastic 2018 film Isle of Dogs. The French Dispatch was supposedly to be released in 2020 as you know what happened, then came many delays as it was finally brought to life in Fall 2021. The French Dispatch to me is a film in which not everyone will be on board at first, but over the course of time this is going to age magnificently.
The French Dispatch perhaps is the most gorgeous looking film of the year, whether the film is in black and white or color, it’s extremely gorgeous to look at it. How great does the film look visually?! It’s often rare when you consider a film to be presentable even with the volume off, that’s how beautiful this film looks. Loved the color pallet, the variety of colors is pure eye candy on screen. The set design was a major highlight of this film as well, as Wes Anderson attention to detail creating many worlds really brought itself to life, as it does mimic the likes of a magazine in which was Wes Anderson’s intention to make the audience feels scrolling through pages of a magazine. There is also a couple sequences of animation as the 2-D hand drawn animation was pretty awesome, very fun stuff.
The Score was solid as well, bringing a lovely Jazz like feel to the film. The cast all in all was great as a whole, honestly there’s not a single dull performance in this entire film. The story at hand was throughly entertaining as it almost felt like an anthology film, considering it’s telling different stories at hand. My favorite story as I feel many would be in agreement, would be the story of the convict artist Moses (Benicio Del Toro). It honestly the most entertaining story, well constructed story, and even the funniest one as well, especially J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton) whom provided a lot of hilarious jokes within that story.
I think a couple flaws within The French Dispatch was some of the stories can feel not only confusing some at certain moments, but almost felt as improv. Like sometimes I felt it was just making up stuff as the story went along, I felt it more at the “Tastes” story especially.
The French Dispatch given time and especially more rewatches, it’ll be considered another gem by Wes Anderson that’ll have a nice fan following for years to come.
Overall, The French Dispatch t’was a dope film. I highly recommend checking this one out, it’s a must see in a theater especially. -Mitch Smietana