2.5/5
Written by Luke Barnes
Summary
A series of stories making up the final issue of a well respected fictional news publication.
I have been a fan of Wes Anderson for some time, and for the most part I enjoy his style and his noticeable eccentricities, however, here I find he has gone too far into himself. This film embraces Anderson’s filmmaking philosophy to the Nth degree, serving as a series of barely connected skits with constant movement and a loose connective whole, this is not a good thing as it makes the whole piece very hard to follow.
Each tale and indeed each scene within seemed to jump from one thing to another with such speed as to make it impossible to know what was going on.
Worse yet, of the four pieces the only one that is enjoyable, the first featuring Owen Wilson, is incredibly short and then that’s it we don’t see Wilson again until the end of the film. The other three features suffer from the opposite problem, which is to say they drag on, and on- to the point of boredom.
That is not to say this film is bad there are moments of enjoyment to be found whether that is a chuckle, or a delightfully off beat Anderson character. The best amongst these is Timothee Chalamet’s Zeffirelli. Other than in The King Chalamet has never impressed me in the way he has other people and I have long viewed him as overrated. This film counters that as Chalamet fits in perfectly and easily captures the essence of a Wes Anderson character easily becoming the best character in the whole film, as such I am hoping that Chalamet becomes Anderson’s new muse and the two keep making films together for a long time.
Overall, though there are good elements to the film, it suffers from terrible pacing and a feeling of indulgence on the directors part, it could be said this film is too Wes Anderson for most Wes Anderson fans,
Pros.
Chalamet
A few funny moments
Owen Wilson’s segment
Cons.
Three of the four segments are only okay
The pace is awful
The lack of a coherent larger narrative
Most of the actors are wasted
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Another Millennial Reviewer 