The French Dispatch

Wes Anderson’s tenth fea­ture film seems tai­lor-made to appeal to movie lovers who also appre­ci­ate the art of print jour­nal­ism. Con­cern­ing the for­eign bureau of the fic­tion­al Lib­er­ty Kansas Evening Sun news­pa­per, The French Dis­patch fol­lows three sep­a­rate sto­ry­lines gath­ered togeth­er with­in the supplement’s final issue, to be released upon the pass­ing of its founder and edi­tor-in-chief, Arthur How­itzer Jr (Bill Murray).

These dis­patch­es take the form of a trav­el­ogue filed by cycling enthu­si­ast Herb­saint Saz­er­ac (Owen Wil­son), an arts report from JKL Berensen (Til­da Swin­ton), a polit­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion by Lucin­da Kre­mentz (Frances McDor­mand) and a food col­umn writ­ten by Roe­buck Wright (Jef­frey Wright), book­end­ed by a pro­logue and epi­logue detail­ing the paper’s past and present.

These sto­ries are depict­ed in typ­i­cal­ly off­beat Ander­son­ian fash­ion: Berensen deliv­ers a sym­po­sium about the incar­cer­at­ed artist Moses Rosen­thaler (Beni­cio del Toro) and his muse, prison guard Simone (Léa Sey­doux); Kre­mentz reports on stu­dent rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies Zef­firelli B (Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met) and Juli­ette (Lyna Khoudri). Per­haps the most mov­ing of the seg­ments is the final one, in which Wright’s reporter – inspired by James Bald­win – reflects on an encounter with famed police chef Lt. Nescafi­er (Stephen Park) dur­ing a kid­nap­ping case.

Ander­son has point­ed to New York­er mag­a­zine as his grand inspi­ra­tion, and this shines through with­out ever feel­ing too insu­lar or alien­at­ing to those unfa­mil­iar with the pub­li­ca­tion. The film man­ages to por­tray that stri­dent spir­it with the kind of quick-wit­ted, intri­cate dia­logue we’ve come to expect from this gift­ed writer, inter­laced with mem­o­rable plot­lines that wouldn’t feel out of place in a high­brow peri­od­i­cal. A car­toon sequence is a par­tic­u­lar­ly love­ly touch, rem­i­nis­cent of the New Yorker’s famed illus­trat­ed covers.

The French Dis­patch is Anderson’s most impres­sion­is­tic and unusu­al film, not to men­tion his most ambi­tious. The sprawl­ing cast list might have once looked intim­i­dat­ing, but they flit in and out of frame, adding colour and life to the head­lines. Even though many A‑listers only get a line or two, they are all well-utilised (Bob Bal­a­ban and Hen­ry Win­kler as near-silent uncles to Adrien Brody’s art deal­er is a par­tic­u­lar­ly won­der­ful touch).

It cer­tain­ly won’t con­vert any Wes naysay­ers – his intri­cate styl­is­tic quirks are on full on dis­play, and some famil­iar­i­ty with the New York­er will help make sense of fin­er details, includ­ing the ded­i­ca­tions list at the end of the film. But Ander­son nev­er lacks for heart and soul, with art­ful con­sid­er­a­tions of love, lib­er­ty and what lives on after we die. Much like any print clas­sic, it begs to be poured over again and again.