The French Dispatch

This long-awaited new Wes Anderson gem, originally scheduled to premiere at the cancelled Cannes Film Festival in 2020, is an homage to both the legendary New Yorker magazine and the country of France itself (Anderson has lived in Paris for many years). A stunning cast of Anderson regulars (Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Anjelica Huston, etc.) are joined by newcomers Benicio del Toro, Timothée Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, and others to tell a series of loosely related tales of writers working for an American magazine based in the fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, France. Set in the 1960s, the film mixes hilarity and a touch of melancholia about a lost time and way of life—and it is among his most visually amazing works, ‘each frame filled with meticulously crafted small details that add up to a dense, inviting cinematic jewel box’ (Screen). ‘More fun, more buoyancy, more elegance, more marvellously eccentric invention, more originality. It might not be at the very zenith of what [Anderson] can achieve but for sheer moment-by-moment pleasure, and for laughs, this is a treat.’—Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian