I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this film, considering how indifferent I was to Wes Anderson's last offering, Moonrise Kingdom. I am generally not a fan of quirk for quirk's sake, but it seemed to work here, conveying the zany low-brow hijinks of high-brow people. Like an episode of Frasier shot in pastels. A writer (Tom Wilkinson) is reflecting on having stayed at a once grand resort as a young man (Jude Law) and interviewing the mysterious owner, Mr. Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) about his life. Zero started out as a lobby boy (Tony Revolori) at The Grand Budapest in the intermediary period between the World Wars. His boss and mentor was the legendary M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), a highly cultured concierge who had a thing for wealthy ancient widows. One such venerable lady (Tilda Swinton) wills him a very valuable painting, pissing off her son, Dmitri (Adrian Brody), who hates M. Gustave. Dmitri sends his goon, Jopling (Willem Dafoe) to recover the painting by any means necessary.
There is a lot more running around than that but you get the gist. In fact, there's so much going on in this movie that I'll probably have to watch it several more times in order to get all the jokes.
This is the second score Alexandre Desplat is nominated for (the other is The Imitation Game) and I think this might be the better one. Production Design and Cinematography are both excellent. The whole movie feels like a frosted cake. Compared to its other nominees for Costume and Makeup, I don't feel like it's a winner, but both aspects are well done. The only way this movie is winning Best Picture or Best Director is if the other ballots are equally divided between Boyhood and Birdman.
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