The Grand Budapest Hotel: A Review by Kay

Through a majority of watching The Grand Budapest Hotel I had a silly grin on my face. The rest of the time my jaw hung in awe or I was grimacing. It was a quirky, fun, storybook of a ride. Ralph Fiennes is so engaging as hotel concierge M. Gustave, it’s easy to just float right through the film at the brisk pace he seems to set.

As usual Wes Anderson does a lovely job of creating a sense of time and place that feels based in reality yet totally made-up. Certain scenes are even lit like you’re watching a scene from a play. And yet there are moments of violence that serve as pinpoints of stark contrast to the magical lilt of the film.

The only element I had trouble understanding the necessity of was the 4-layer narration. The film begins with a girl visiting a monument celebrating an author before opening up a book of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Then we shift to the author recording an intro to the book before sliding over to the author as a younger man meeting the elder former lobby boy, Zero Moustafa, in the hotel and as Zero tells his story we move into the pre-war hotel setting where most of the movie takes place. The end the movie slides back out to each of those times and levels. The last two layers are plentiful enough on their own.

Despite the large cast, the focus was pretty tight, making . . . → Read More: Kay Reviews The Grand Budapest Hotel