Walking into a preview of The Grand Budapest Hotel, a colleague wondered aloud if this was the film in which Wes Anderson would overcome his penchant for symmetry. In fact, The Grand Budapest Hotel must be the most maddeningly symmetrical movie ever produced! Frames are composed with a neatness and correctness that feels obsessive-compulsive.
The good news is that it’s sheer pleasure from start to finish. Anderson is a director who drives some viewers mad with his eccentricities but I’ve been seduced from the day I saw his debut feature, Bottle Rocket (1996). In the movies that followed, Anderson has grown increasingly ambitious, exhibiting all the trademarks of a highly distinctive auteur.
