Screenwriter-director Wes Anderson's "The French Chronicle" is a star-studded and informative film, made up of three francophile and nostalgic stories set in a French city called Ennui, which appear to have originally appeared between the pages of The New Yorker's Eyebrow Magazine.
If you have not yet connected to Anderson's films (which include masterpieces such as "The Tennenbaum Family", "The Famous Mr. Fox", "Grand Budapest Hotel" and more), it is better that you spare yourself the nerves and just choose to watch something else. On the other hand, if you like the bouncy and hipster style of the eccentric Texan director, it is not unlikely that you will find something to enjoy here as well. For "The French Chronicle" is Wes Anderson on steroids (and without people gently telling him "Wes, in resuscitation, maybe calm down a bit?").
The first of the three stories - and the most successful of them all - tells a wild, funny and brilliant artistic tale about a Mexican Jewish murderer named Moses Rosenthal (in his excellent Nissio del Toro) who becomes a famous painter while serving a life sentence.
In this story the result does not fall short of the best things Anderson has done during his career.
Leah Sadu ("No Time to Die") stars alongside Del Toro as a warden who serves as his muse;
Adrian Brody appears as the art dealer who discovers Rosenthal;
Tilda Swinton, on the other hand, is the pompous art expert who tells the story.
Just wow.
Unfortunately, despite their tireless activism, the following stories are characterized by a certain amount of hassle and make it very difficult to recreate the dizzying achievement of the first story.
While both are progressing at a murderous pace and replete with all the tricks and tricks that Anderson fans know and love, unlike the opening story, they lack real focus or a clear point, and it’s hard to say they lead to a particularly interesting or rewarding place.
In one, Timothy Shalama (in a relatively weak performance) plays a student leader who has a brief affair with a serious-minded journalist (Frances McDormand) who covers the obscure revolution he is leading.
In the second, one of the writers at the magazine (Jeffrey Wright) recalls a clumsy story he wrote about a legendary police chef.
"The French Chronicle" may not be remembered as one of Anderson's great moments, but its first part certainly justifies watching it, and its sequel contains so much creativity, graceful distractions, and amusing guest appearances from regular members of Anderson's cast (like Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Sirsha Ronen and others), which will probably not bother you very much.
An overall pleasant experience (even if not uniform in its level).
Score: 7
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us