Two lauded directors' most recent charms

I had long been in anticipation of Wes Anderson’s latest, The French Dispatch, since before the pandemic. I finally saw it last week at a Cineplex, the first mainstream theatre I’d been in since the pandemic began. As all things Wes Anderson, The French Dispatch is highly idiosyncratic, whimsical, ironic and slightly absurd and with a cast of dozens including a great array of well-known contemporary actors. It’s based on Anderson’s love of The New Yorker magazine. And the magazine in the film is called The French Dispatch. The characters are based on famed New Yorker editors and writers. Bill Murray plays an editor based on New Yorker co-founder Harold Ross, Owen Wilson on New Yorker travel writer Joseph Mitchell, Jeffrey Wright on James Baldwin and A. J. Liebling. Among the cast are such stars as Liev Schreiber, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Jason Schwartzman and Anjelica Huston. From here the film departs. It’s set in France not New York City. And it’s framed around the apparent demise of this writer- writer’s magazine, though the movie insists on calling it a newspaper. The staff must dredge up articles which best represent The French Dispatch’s past glories. And so, Anderson takes us through four separate vignettes – videos taking us inside the articles, if you will - all set in the French town of Ennui (translates as boredom; get it?) And here is where Anderson and his co-writers including Jason Schwartzman have a field day. Every post-war French movie cliché is on display. From down at the heels working class neighborhoods with their butchers and bakeries, to beret-wearing tough guys and classic Citroens to tarty backstreet hookers. This is the real humor of the film. The stories themselves are hugely intricate, sometimes confusing and at times listless. But what Anderson has brought to their production is magnificent, with elaborate sets, costumes merged with cartoons, and a great score by Alexandre Desplat, one of the most prolific movie composers around (The Shape of Water, The King’s Speech). So, while there’s a lot to cinematic marvels to gaze at and plenty of laughs at these mocked clichés, you’re basically left with the feeling, “Okay, good on Wes, give him an E for effort.”

After watching Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World at Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinema, I thought the characters on the screen were an exact mirror of the audience – young, kind of hip, probably trying to find their ways in careers and life, maybe struggling in relationships, right down to their yoga sessions and environmental consciences. Trier hasn’t made a lot of films but he’s a bit of a cult director for his edgy subjects (addiction and suicide in Oslo, August 31^st (2011) and world strife and a female photojournalist in Louder Than Bombs (2015). I’ve seen all his films except his supernatural thriller Thelma (2017) and Worst Person is his most accomplished. Everything comes together in this story of Julie (Renate Reinsve) who, like much of the youngish audience, is trying to get her life together, walking a tightrope between loyalty to friends and lovers and what’s best for herself (hence the film’s guilt-implied title). The film's structure is at the heart of its appeal. Trier's telling of Julie's story in 12 chapters plus epilogue creates anticipation and pacing and we become truly absorbed in her sometimes wayward life. But the genius of the film is that what's depicted here isn't particularly extraordinary. In fact, the storyline isn’t so much different from most people’s lives (especially those in a Montreal film festival audience). But this true capturing of the utter commonplace is what makes the film so great.