Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel offers an escape from reality
JUST like the establishment from which it takes its name, The Grand Budapest Hotel offers a lavish and highly enjoyable escape from reality.
Leigh Paatsch
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JUST like the establishment from which it takes its name, The Grand Budapest Hotel offers a sprawling, lavish and highly enjoyable escape from reality.
The film is the work of American writer-director Wes Anderson, famous above all else for his elaborate, micromanaged production designs.
If you have journeyed into one of Anderson’s amazing alternate universes before — say, in films such as Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom — then you’ll know a seriously sumptuous treat awaits here.
After some early pit stops elsewhere in the illustrious history of the Grand Budapest — a fictional five-star crash-pad in an equally fictional corner of Eastern Europe — we are warmly welcomed into the era when the hotel was at the height of its renown.
The year is 1932, and M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is at the peak of his powers as the Grand Budapest’s celebrated chief concierge.
Not a want nor need of a solitary guest gets past Gustave, a man of flamboyant tastes and mercurial moods. And not a single rich old lady can resist his charm, particularly when he switches it on late in the evening.
It is upon the sudden death of one moneyed biddy, the doddery Madame D. (a near-unrecognisable Tilda Swinton) that Gustave seizes the opportunity he has seemingly spent a lifetime planning for.
Madame D. has named him as a featured beneficiary in her will.
There is just one problem.
No, make that two: Madame D.’s psychotic sons (Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe) hate Gustave with a passion, and are prepared to unleash hell to destroy the Grand Budapest and its star employee.
What follows is a defiantly odd, yet always accessible adventure caper, with Gustave and his loyal offsider — an ever-resourceful bellboy named Zero (Tony Revolori) — fighting tooth and nail to keep their formidable enemies at bay.
Playing spectacularly against type, Fiennes is a genuinely hilarious revelation as Gustave. A stellar support ensemble, which includes Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Owen Wilson and Jeff Goldblum,
also keeps this exotic bird of a movie continually soaring to greater heights.
From every angle, The Grand Budapest Hotel delivers so much to love, laugh along with, and lean forward for a better look at.
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