WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

“The French Dispatch” stacks their cast list with A-list celebrities and encapsulates a wild collection of short films to create one of the most amazing anthologies.

Wes Anderson fanatics gather for another random and chaotic film. This new adventure is a mosaic of tales within the film “The French Dispatch”.

A group of the characters in "The French Dispatch" are all doing irregular things, staring at the camera in their assorted costumes against a teal background with the title "The French Dispatch hovering over them.

The official film poster for “The French Dispatch” in 2021.

Following the major success of Director Anderson’s films’ “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and many more strange stories, he has yet again put out a picture with mixed reviews.

This Anderson film maintains a myriad of salient stories.

The movie sets off discussing the ongoing theme of the newspaper called the French Dispatch, located in the French town Ennui-sur-Blasé, which literally translates to  “boredom upon apathy”.

Although they maintain the newspaper magazine office within this fictional french city, they print the paper in Kansas. This newspaper outlet style and business model is reminiscent of a very real “The New Yorker”.

Interestingly enough, Anderson took inspiration from the beloved magazine for this film.

The movie opens with the office of the newspaper staff and goes into detail about the company’s history.

They introduce the ambitious editor of the French Dispatch, Arthur Horowitz Jr., portrayed by Bill Murray, who took on the role of editor after the long run of his father.

The audience is then informed of the sudden passing of the editor, revealing the final wishes listed in his will. He instructed his staff to immediately cease production of the newspaper after his passing, with the exception of one final release of a farewell publication.

The farewell issue contained three articles from past issues, as well as his obituary, which basically drives the entirety of the film.

Immediately afterwards, the movie divulges into the articles, illustrating them within this issue by showing the audience what the journalists had written about rather than solely reading the pieces themselves.

The articles include “The Cycling Reporter”, where the writer, played by Owen Wilson, hilariously delivers an elaborate and logical depiction of the town of Ennui.

This performance is followed by the story of “The Concrete Masterpiece”, which details a story of a talented and genius artist who happens to be in prison.

The jailer and the artist’s muse is a rising star who is recognizable from her work as the love interest in James Bond’s latest film “No Time to Die”, Léa Seydoux.

This article is followed by the story of “Revisions to A Manifesto”, in which reporter Lucinda Krementz writes about a student protest which transformed into a chessboard revolution.

Timothée Chalamet’s character Zeffirelli writes his own manifesto with the help of Krementz’s addition of an appendix, despite her decision to maintain  journalistic neutrality.

They also go on to have a brief secret romance, and Chalamet’s character goes on to become the literal and symbolic leader of the revolt.

The final article demonstrated in the film is the piece “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner.”

This tells the tale of the highly intelligent son of the commissioner who has been kidnapped and held hostage for ransom. The police then undergo a series of interrogations and perform a stakeout as they unfold the truth.

This story maintains a high level of action-packed scenes and suspense awaiting the safety of this poor boy. The climax is done through animation adding a unique charm to each of the intense moments.

After the four captivating, yet choppy stories are played out, the audience is  welcomed back into the office of the late editor to read his obituary.

This story is carried out by the director as a “Love Letter to Journalists”, and truly captures the cinematic quality of storytelling. Although this movie comes off less serious than that of “The New Yorker” and looks to be more of a parody, it is still entertaining for fans of this director’s work as it is very similar in style to his previous films.

This movie is great for moviegoers who enjoy movies that should not be taken seriously. It is purely a comedy—nothing more, and nothing less.

This film also maintains plenty of great performances, which comes as no surprise due to its abundance of famous actors. These star performers include Saiorse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Frances McDormand and many more.

“The French Dispatch” is a goofy movie featuring great performances by many familiar faces with aesthetically-pleasing cinematography.

Madison Wanco can be reached jaedynyoung@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.