I’ve just written about Rushmore and touched on the great stylistic difference between Wes
Anderson’s earliest films and the techniques he uses in his latest. The Grand Budapest Hotel is a great
example of how Anderson’s stylized world, whimsical flights of fancy, and
self-conscious artifice have grown and joined together to blend into a
harmonious vision.
I was a true Anderson enthusiast through The Royal Tenenbaums, but he lost me
until Fantastic Mr. Fox, which struck
me as the absolute perfect representation of what he has always tried to
accomplish. The Grand Budapest Hotel
has brought him back completely into my good graces and though it contains moments
that are so previously Wes Anderson-y that it risks becoming a parody of his
own style, it somehow reached me in surprising and new ways.