Grand Budapest Hotel - Danny's review

This is a typical Wes Anderson film. If you found The Royal Tanenbaums irritating and unbelievable you certainly won't like this. The characters are wilfully odd and the sets deliberately cartoony. The pace of the film is uneven and jerky, with unexpected turns of action and comedy.

In the middle of it all there's Ralph Fiennes playing the concierge Gustave H. He's an eccentric living by his own with strict code of morals, which includes first class service at all times and a weakness for romantic poetry. He's a throwback to a time where concierges not only existed, but were important.

Gustave H. is from a bygone era, and of course so is the Grand Budapest Hotel itself. There's something instantly nostalgic about a huge dilapidated building, that was once full of life. Places like that don't exist any more, mostly I think because since the introduction of a Minimum Wage it's no longer viable to have a huge hierarchy of servants. There's also a traditional sweet shop, known by the name of the proprietor, that only makes one type of cake. You don't get them any more.

To add to the feeling of delving into the past the main film is couched inside two outer stories. In the present day a writer records his memoirs, which are about meeting with the hotel owner in the 60s, who then recounted his story from the 30s. I'm not normally a fan of the story-within-a-story technique, I see it as a cheap way to give a sense of gravity to the conclusion when you zoom back to the present day. I'm not sure how I feel about the story-within-a-story-within-a-story.

There's a very impressive cast, with some big name actors taking quite small roles. As well as all the names on the poster I think I spotted George Clooney at one point. Most of the characters are too odd to really relate too, but you see enough of Gustave H that you being to sympathise with him by the end. I also really liked the bittersweet love story, which was tangential to the main plot but added a lot to it.

My favourite bit was when Gustave H. was in prison, being unfailingly polite to the other prisoners. At this point you know the character well enough that the situation is already funny. The escape sequence (spoiler alert) was good too.

Overall this was good, but not as fantastic as I'd hoped.