The Grand Budapest Hotel (movie review)

      Having no context of The Grand Budapest Hotel, I assumed much of this film, in regards to the  source material that is typical of a Wes Anderson film. Usually, his kind of protagonist would have some odd goal of obtaining an affection for a high school teacher (1998’s Rushmore) or Foxes settling a score with Farmers (2009’s Fantastic Mr Fox).  I’ve always thought of his movies to be strange, but inventive; so, when I was about to see this particular film, I left it all to the context of the film and no other outlets for a synopsis. I mean, I knew minor details here and there, but I went into the film cold and, whether it was low expectations or otherwise, I enjoyed this film a lot, because the film has a nice flow with sold writing, great direction from Anderson and its sublime cast. 
       
       The movie starts off with a woman heading to a graveyard to pay respects to a writer and then opens the book from “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” written by the deceased writer, who’s never given a name other than just “The Writer.” The film is set in the fictional Euro state of Zubrowka, we’re given a look at the writer’s story of the hotel from his younger self in 1968, played by Jude Law, when he’s overseeing it with the aid of Zero Moustafa, played by F. Murray Abraham, The original owner of the establishment, Monsieur Gustave H, is played by Ralph Fiennes. Moustafa is an integral part of this story with his history with Gustave, because he was once one of his lobby boys during 1932 (his younger self is played by Tony Revolori, by the way). He grows up witnessing the hardships of poverty, war, and his owner’s love for the octogenarian crowd, which I swear; he had to have been some adoration of his when he was growing up as kid in the late 1800s; the reasons for his deep infatuations with the elderly isn’t thoroughly explained, aside from it being a random detail, it’s one that’ll raise your eyebrow once the Fiennes character admits as such. It never dawned on me why his first name is Zero until I was able to figure out until midway through the movie, but, I’ll let the readers of this article figure out the metaphor for his/herself. 

       Otherwise, the basis of the film is a character study on their identities and how the inevitable events transpire from the film, do shape them for better or worse.  There are moments when the film does tend to drag, since, some of the bits can be lost on those who don’t watch a lot of Anderson’s films, but that’s really a small complaint for a well-structured film. It has a fair running time (100 minutes) and it surprised me a lot, especially with Fiennes, who’s not known for his comedic talent, but his devotion to this character and the film’s script serves him well here. Besides his mention about his thing for old folks, his oddball candor was quite hilarious. All in all, the film is a definite good time.