Over two decades of directing films, Wes Anderson has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most stylistically distinct directors. His deadpan direction, unconventional set design, muted color palette, and symmetrical cinematography, are recognizable to both avid fans and casual viewers. In “The French Dispatch”, Anderson takes his eccentric style to its logical extreme, with a film about French society from the perspective of a newspaper.
“The French Dispatch” is an anthology framed as journalistic investigations into four stories published by the newspaper. The film opens with a newsreel announcing the death of the paper’s head editor, Arthur Howitzer Jr. (played by Bill Murray), followed by scenes of a typical day in the newsroom.
“The French Dispatch” takes advantage of its high concept, by visually imitating the photos seen in magazines such as TIME or The New Yorker. The film uses black and white, an animated segment, and highlighting to distinguish what’s being portrayed from the pages of the newspaper and real life.
Being set around the late 60s, the film takes inspiration from the pop art of the time. From the film’s “Sgt. Pepper”-inspired poster, to its Norman Rockwell-esque scenery, Anderson takes great care to make these vignettes as eye-catching and instantly gratifying, as you would expect a good magazine’s editorials to be.
Like his other movies, Anderson frames the film’s action like a dollhouse. The camera moves seamlessly from room to room where extras conduct their daily routines like clockwork. “The French Dispatch” gives us this signature dissective look into even more interesting sets such as an asylum, jumbo jet, and criminal hideout.
While some might dismiss Wes Anderson as a “style over substance” director, this film in particular, has a clear theme of societal change. The opening vignette features a reporter touring the fictional French town of Ennui and discussing how the city has changed or stayed the same.
The second and third vignettes show decent, civilized culture being cast aside in favor of the ugly and chaotic. The second vignette ‘The Concrete Masterpiece’ tells the story of a lunatic, murderer, abstract artist (played by Benicio del Toro) and the cult following he developed. ‘Revisions to a Manifesto’ focuses on a dimwitted student revolutionary (played by Timothée Chalamet) who becomes a Che Guevara-esque symbol after an accidental, early death.
While the stories presented were interesting on the whole, I sometimes wished they were treated with more gravity than presented. Wes Anderson’s style leaves audiences feeling almost completely detached from his characters, and while all the vignettes are interesting on a visual level, none of them have any real emotional impact.
Compare that to the Coen Brothers’ 2018 film “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”—another example of well-established filmmakers using a series of shorts to play to their stylistic strengths. While “Buster Scruggs” had the Coens’ signature dry humor and irony, the film still had a sense of humanity and morals that Anderson lacks.
While the Coens treated their characters with fascination, Anderson treats “The French Dispatch” and its stories with a somewhat ironic disdain. In a similar fashion to a newspaper article, we don’t get to know who these characters really are as people, but only the interesting facts surrounding them.
This somewhat takes away from the film’s great cast as their delivery is constantly deadpan and monotone. While this leads to some good bits of humor, it’s a shame that actors like Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, and Timothée Chalamet aren’t given the chance to show off their full range.
There’s no denying that “The French Dispatch” is a well-made, entertaining film that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. Wes Anderson doesn’t try to fix what isn’t broken, and his formula has worked perfectly well for most of his career. If you’ve enjoyed any of Wes Anderson’s previous films, you’ll certainly enjoy this one.
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