Tis Me Michelle

I can appreciate an undeniable unique style. There is no question when you watch a Wes Anderson movie. So much so it’s a running TikTok Trend. The direction of the cinematography, the music, the color grade, it is all right on brand. I’ve seen a few of his movies and it’s been 50/50.

The first one I’d seen was Moonrise Kingdom, which I barely remember at this point, but I remember enjoying the quirkiness. It was my introduction to Wes Anderson, and there is just a delight to the quirkiness of his films. Then I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was my favorite of the bunch. I’m a big Ralph Fiennes fan, who I don’t think gets enough credit as one of the greats. TGBH had a great pace and I found it much more engaging than the rest. On the high from TGBH, I watched The French Dispatch when it came out, and I was confused and rather bored, but I knew there was a deeper meaning that wasn’t totally resonating with me. It’s actually the same feeling I had with Asteroid City.

And to be completely honest, I am very okay with that being my experience because I think it’s more so that I’m not smart enough to understand either movie. In his latest film, we see a rather meta display with us watching a movie that’s a tv show about a play that’s shot like a movie. So we are seeing a combination of the actors playing the characters in their play/movie and we also see them break character in their theater school.

One of the central characters Augie, who much like me, doesn’t quite understand the play and when he owns up to it is told, “Doesn’t matter, just keep telling the story”. That line paired with a few others in the movie really made things click for me just enough. Cause isn’t that what most of us are doing? We go through the motions of life. We carry on knowing a lot of what is going on around us doesn’t quite make sense… But it doesn’t matter, it’s what we do to survive. Goes right into another line from the movie, “Everything is connected but nothing’s working”.

Looking back at the dialogue, it’s clear there is a message and an interesting and relevant one at that. Unfortunately, all the meta layers really took me out of the film. And it was an overall quiet movie, I much prefer movies that have more dialogue and a quicker pace. Anderson’s movies are always star-studded, but with so many characters it’s hard to appreciate them all because there is quite a lot and yet not a whole lot going on at once.

So I’d say the jury is still out on if I’m a Wes Anderson fan. There are a few other films he has I wanted to see. Again, his style is really so fun and intriguing, and uniquely his. Sometimes it works for me and sometimes it just goes over my head.

Stars: ⭐️ ⭐️