If you had to make a list of things you’d expect to see in the trailer to a new Wes Anderson movie, it might include the following: people wearing fezzes; old-fashioned carousels; trains; mounted animal heads; codes that require magnifying glasses to read; people wearing mustaches; Bill Murray in a stupid beard; Jason Schwartzman; Owen Wilson; prisoners wearing Hamburglar-style stripes; and antique cars driving around.
If that’s what you’ve come to expect from Anderson, congratulations! The trailer to his latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel, is out, and it should whet your appetite for the latest in his highly stylized oeuvre. The plot centers around Ralph Fiennes, who plays the concierge of a luxury hotel in Budapest, as he deals with murder and romance. It’s set in Europe between the two World Wars, which makes it Anderson’s first proper period piece (it’s hard to know for sure when exactly The Fantastic Mr. Fox takes place, though).
Anderson’s aesthetics haven’t changed much since he burst onto the scene with the Dallas-set, Dallas-shot Bottle Rocket seventeen years ago, but his resources have grown considerably. If Anderson continuing to do his Anderson thing excites you, and you don’t mind hearing words like “quirky” and “twee” tossed around a lot to describe a movie you enjoyed, then The Grand Budapest Hotel looks to be exactly the sort of movie you’d expect from the guy at this point in his career.
