Wes Anderson returning to the world of Roald Dahl? Yes please!
This is a fascinating take on Dahl's short story. Anderson recognises the brilliance of Dahl's words and doesn't alter them much, allowing the actors to recite them. The story itself is rather fun and unusually light for a Dahl story for adults, essentially a tale of spiritual growth.
You could stage this in the obvious way and create an expensive globe-trotting film but Anderson doesn't do that. The short film is staged as if it's being performed on stage with the actors walking around and stagehands and make-up artists casually doing their job on screen. It's very Anderson-y and as ever superbly well executed.
The actors also essentially read the story- Henry Sugar for example narrates in the third person. This allows so much more of Dahl's words to make it to the screen. It's read at breath-neck speed and with fairly limited intonation. This initially feels a bit jarring but after a few minutes it just clicks and works wonderfully. The cast here (Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade and Ben Kingsley) are all superb. Ayoade has perhaps the smallest role but it was his performance I most enjoyed with some superb looks to camera.
Anderson continues to be on superb form and this is a delightful thing.
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