The French Dispatch Review: Wes Anderson's film is a delectably artistic ode to journalism

With The French Dispatch, director Wes Anderson presents his love letter for the bygone era of journalism inspired by the foundation of The New Yorker. Read Pinkvilla's review of the film below.

Updated on Mar 21, 2022  |  12:33 PM IST |  296.6K
The French Dispatch Review
The French Dispatch is available to stream on Disney+Hotstar.

The French Dispatch

The French Dispatch Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton

The French Dispatch Director: Wes Anderson

The French Dispatch Stars: 4/5 

The beauty of Wes Anderson films is that they require multiple viewings not because they are incomprehensible but simply so as to enjoy the amount of detailing they possess. Every little element in an Anderson movie is added to convey something and not for mere effect including a plate of burnt toast that features in the corner of the frame of a long shot. The director's latest film, The French Dispatch is laden with such elements that demand your attention. As the film makes its way to streaming in India, it makes you realise that isn't something that can be best enjoyed on the small screen. A painting requires a canvas and a Wes Anderson movie certainly requires a big screen. 

It has been widely known that with The French Dispatch, Anderson captures his love for The New Yorker and the influence of its stories and journalists on his life as a reader. Through a fictional publication called The French Dispatch based in a fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, the film takes us through its journey under beloved editor, Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray). The film takes inspiration for Howitzer's character from foundational New Yorker editors Harold Ross and William Shawn and also its writers who come across as fictionalised versions of some famous voices synonymous with the magazine including Mavis Gallant among others. 

Beginning with an introduction of the journalists who cover varied beats for the supplement, the film revolves around the final publication of the Sunday supplement of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun that was transformed by Howitzer into at first a travelogue titled Picnic to eventually, The French Dispatch, home to myriad journalistic voices. The film follows three long features produced by journalists Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) who gives an "around town" coverage in his bicycle riding coverage, then comes Tilda Swinton's J. K. L. Berendsen, an art critic who produces a piece on Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio Del Toro), a genius artist serving a prison asylum sentence for homicide and his prison guard muse Simone (Lea Seydoux). This is followed by a political piece on the Youth movement in France covered by Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) and the final one being a story for the food section that turns out to be an exciting heist story from Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright). In the epilogue, all writers come together to bid a final adieu to Howitzer whose passing is also the end of their magazine's run as per a clause put forth by the editor. 

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For a film revolving around journalists whose professional requirement is to remain an outsider to all things they are surrounded by, The French Dispatch successfully co-relates this element in every writer and their subject. To tell this story, Anderson finds himself as well in the seat of being an outsider, a storyteller who reimagines the world inside the workings of a magazine. The film starts off with Sazerac (Owen Wilson) taking us on a tour of Ennui-sur-Blasé and its seedy side with unruly choir boys creeping up on pensioners and floating bodies being found in the river. It forms a rare combination of something that's aesthetic but untamed as we see a beret-wearing, Wilson riding on his bicycle providing an oral history of a town's past and future. 

Next, we dive into the art world as Anderson provides us with a portrait of a "literal tortured" artist (Benicio Del Toro), his muse Simone (Seydoux) and Julian Cadazio (Adrian Brody), an ex-prisoner turned artwork dealer for Moses. In one of the film's most significant exchanges, Moses Rosenthaler (Del Toro) and Cadazio (Brody) engage in a conversation where the former tells him how he has no intention to sell his art to which Julian responds, "It’s what makes you an artist. Selling it." A rebuttal of sorts to this very assumption of Cadazio is later observed in Rosenthaler's final work where he presents a fresco painted onto the prison wall that is potentially impossible to sell but impactful enough to seal his name in art history. It's also a melancholic tale of Rosenthaler's suicidal artist finding purpose and love through painting Simone and at the same time a great critique on art fraud. 

Probably not one of the strongest stories in the film is the one revolving around Lucinda Krementz's (Frances McDormand) feature where despite her job asking her to take a neutral stand, she finds herself compromising her journalistic objectivity after getting involved with the moody revolutionary and chess player, Zeffirelli (Timothee Chalamet) as she writes about the student protests in Paris with a description that calls them the "pimple-cream and wet-dream contingent." The skittish characteristics of Zeffirelli and his fellow youth revolutionaries present a rather unbiased look at the politics of the situation and it's what Anderson terms "luminous abstractions" through Krementz's character. There's also a sense of recklessness to this story that echoes its youthful subjects although in comparison to the real incidents it's inspired from, this playful take seems a safer choice. 

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The final feature in the anthology though remains the best in terms of everything, from Anderson's choice of visual elements to that shift he makes in switching to animation at one point. With Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright), we learn how the Black American writer came on board as a food critic for the Dispatch and it's one of the film's most telling scenes as we see him imprisoned in the "Chicken coop" cell for what he tells Howitzer "loving the wrong way." It's the subtleties with which the character traits unfold that make the writing shine. The rest of his story though is supposed to be a piece about a legendary chef named Nescaffier (Steve Park) who works in the police department kitchen but what it turns out to be is a thrilling tale of the kidnapping of the commissioner's son. It's fascinatingly captured true to the style of a writer who boasts about his typographic memory, true to the editor's note he receives which says, "make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose."

There's never a dull moment in the Andersonian world and even the modest of emotions receive an eccentric treatment. The director's anthology is very much a part of his kaleidoscope of films that revere art and artists through fictionalized worlds that invite the audience to gaze at a world like a storybook, one chapter at a time. With multiple stories to tell, the filmmaker uses his signature tricks to lure us into the world of this publication including the use of a comic strip, the speedy panning shots and more. The pitch-perfect production design by Adam Stockhausen adds to Anderson's vision with set-pieces bringing their own element of emotions to the storyline. This combined with Alexandre Desplat's score works like a charm. 

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With a cast as abundant as this one, Anderson manages to piece a film that's no less than a jigsaw puzzle that would remain incomplete without even a single piece. Even as Elisabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Christoph Waltz, Mathieu Amalric, Saoirse Ronan turn up with limited lines in a scene or two, each of them plays a necessary part when it comes to the complete picture. As for its main protagonists, Jeffrey Wright certainly stands out with his act as does Bill Murray. 

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The French Dispatch is defined by its inconsistencies, its realistic yet utopian nature. It's a world of journalism that romanticises its artists with a sense of poignancy that isn't synonymous with their profession. With their editor as their guardian, as each writer returns with a compelling tale, they are greeted with a "No crying" clause by Howitzer who serves them a reminder each time that the job remains best when they don't become the subject. For fans of Anderson, this film may not top his best works such as The Grand Budapest Hotel or Moonrise Kingdom but it still remains a treat for those who share an understanding of his vision. 


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A writer with 6 years of experience, addicted to coffee, films, and sarcasm. Currently exploring all things Hollywood, from

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