A visual masterwork that is mostly held back by its story structure.
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In _'The French Dispatch'_ director Wes Anderson goes all out with his characteristic aesthetic, beautiful visuals, use of colour and attention to detail. The music is great, fantastic even at times. There are more top actors than you could find at an average Oscars party. And visually most of shots are works of art all by them self. It is rather unfortunate that Wes his attention to detail do not translate to a more coherent story as a whole, holding the movie back.

Writing
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'_The French Dispatch_' contains three separate stories, only trivially connected by a fourth overarching story about a newspaper and its journalists (based on the origins of a real newspaper.) On their own, **each story is serviceable**, but unfortunately **the guiding story is lacking enough substance** to make it work as a whole. The at times rather dense dialogue, riddled with puns and metaphors, also do not help with avoiding confusion. Especially for the average cinema visitor. However, the jokes and puns are often positively unexpected and with a great show of comedic timing, even during otherwise non comedic scenes. And this is without having to resort to the type of subversive humor we so often see nowadays in blockbuster films.
The three stories on their own, especially the rather quirky first one [spoiler]about the convicted murderer[/spoiler], are all interesting and fun enough to make the viewer invested. And although each story is not likely to be strong enough in its current form to carry a whole film, I think they could have benefited from some more time. To give the characters some more and/or better introduction. It would also have the benefit of seeing some more from all the fantastic actors.

**I would recommend to watch this movie at (a somewhat larger screen) at home**, where you have the option to rewind. That way it is also possible to appreciate the many details in many shots and scenes.

Visuals
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With every movie Wes improves his meticulous and almost obsessive attention to detail in every shot. Considering the visuals; In '_The French Dispatch_' he once again **trumps every movie Wes Anderson has made before**, including the well received '_Budapest Hotel_' and his critically acclaimed stop motion films '_Fantastic Mr. Fox_' and '_Isle Of Dogs_'. Of course there is an ample amount of his characteristic centered camera work, straight angle moving and panning, and the painting-like sets in almost every shot. He plays with aspect ratio and switches between colour and black and white for significant portions of the movie. And there is even a fully (drawn) animated section, which is a lot of fun.
If a movie was only visuals, this one would have been rated a 10/10.

Music
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I absolutely **enjoyed the music and music timing** in this. Composer Alexandre Desplat (who often composed for Wes Anderson his films) made a score that was often subtle, while still reinforcing the atmosphere of the movie and the scene. I also noticed some parts where video and audio were carefully timed to match one another. On a few occasions the music felt like a temporary extra character in the scene, leading the atmosphere instead of only enforcing it, and I found myself actively appreciating it more than I usually do when watching a film.

Acting
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With all the actors involved, and the limited time they are given, it is difficult to properly discuss acting as a whole. There are so many fantastic actors in this, but the lack of screentime for each of them makes none of them award worthy. I **have to mention Benicio del Toro for his acting** though. With his **menacing performance** he outshines most of the other actors. And that is with a cast like this very difficult to do.

Overall I enjoyed this movie a lot, but even though I would like to recommend it, it is difficult to recommend to most people except for people already familiar with Wes Anderson his work. It might be not accessible enough for the average person, with the separate stories and visual style. While for a film fan the story issues can be problematic. Its shortcomings are especially unfortunate, because it likely will be a cause for less people to watch it.

I suppose like any newspaper or magazine upon which this compendium effort is based, there are some "articles" more interesting than others - and that's what this offers. Three elongated features form the centrepieces of this somewhat surreal comedy. As you might expect from Wes Anderson, these stories are eclectic, and delivered well by a cast that were well up for their tasks. My favourite of the three features Frances McDormand and Timothée Chalamet offering us some sort of Hemmingway-esque parody of revolution fought over a chess board - with quite humorous results. Humour is a strong feature of this film. I would say comedy, not so much. One has to pay attention to what is going on to get the best from the acting, the script and, as importantly, the imagery which effortlessly mixes monochrome and colour, and which is also bright, vivacious, and frequently just as informative as the dialogue. It does run out of steam at times, the themes could have been a little more compact, and the two side-stories - especially the travel report with Owen Wilson at the top of the film didn't work so well for me. I'm not an huge fan of eccentricity - it is all-too-often just hit or miss, but here we have more hits than not, and with a healthy swipe at journalistic values along the way, a bit of romance and some daft antics from a rogue Benicio del Toro, this is certainly worth watching.

A French kiss on the chic.

_The French Dispatch_ is like waking up at 6am and realizing it's Saturday and you can go back to sleep: cozy, delightful and satisfying.

Here's the thing... If you look at the magazine cover displayed at the end of the film, you see the price of the issue is 200 Old Francs. Old Francs. Because in 1960, the French re-evaluated their currency by making 100 old francs worth 1 new franc, but the joke here is a magazine would never be priced in an obsolete currency! It would just say '200 francs' because old francs were never referred to as such until they were no longer valid.

The thought, the detail that went into this throwaway joke that only few viewers would notice is amazing, and yet _The French Dispatch_ is resplendent with these little winks, like surprises behind windows in an advent calendar, just waiting for you to discover them one after the other.

Included among these references are the Frenchisms. Maybe because I've been living in Paris so long but the French touches like the cast (Cécile de France and Lyna Khoudri!) or the inside jokes of the names (the town Ennui-sur-Blasé (Boredom-on-Blasé) or the café Le Sans Blague (The No Kidding)) give _The French Dispatch_ a whole new level of authenticity and local charm.

No, the movie isn't perfect. Perhaps its biggest shortcoming is that it's an anthology film, so not all of the sequences are as equally strong. Still, the idea of using a magazine as a framing device for the stories goes a long way towards selling the concept.

The film, however, isn't just carried by its precious attentions and its directorial touches. No, the cast is just remarkable. Tilda Swinton is extraordinary here, as are Ed Norton, Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Frances McDormand, Owen Wilson, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss and, obviously, Bill Murray...to name but a few.

_The French Dispatch_ may not be to everyone's tastes, but I sat in the cinema before the big screen and caught myself giggling aloud, agape with wonder. When people talk about 'movie magic', they're talking about Wes Anderson, and _The French Dispatch_ sure cast its spell on me.

This film might be a tie with Grand Budapest Hotel for my favorite Wes Anderson. It's wacky and creative. The pacing is so fast that it will need another watch to really appreciate. I wish I'd seen it on a big screen :-( Did I mention the amazing cast and the super job they did?

Not to detract from The French Dispatch's absolutely gorgeous styling (as is expected of Wes Anderson), I found the bullet pace along with the absolutely-packed visual elements and rattling dialogue just far too overwhelming at times. There were so many shots that I wanted everything just to slow down for a minute and breathe so I could take in the absolutely incredible visual splendour of it all. The whole feature is an absolute feast for the eyes, really doubling down on Wes's signature style with every passing frame, but it's also the most impenetrable due to the subject matter it riffs on. I couldn't shake my lack of contextual knowledge of French cinema; so many jokes and scenes are homage and parody of famous French cinematic moments, the feeling of seeing in-jokes play out without the prerequisite knowledge to understand them made me feel a little hollow and cold when I should have been grinning with warmth. I'm also very remedial when it comes to my understanding of the French language, so many of the visual and language goofs in the backgrounds were way over my head.
But did I hate The French Dispatch? Not in the slightest, but my viewing experience was definitely hampered by simply not understanding the broader context of how this production came to be. I think someone on Reddit said it best. The French Dispatch is like being bustled through a foreign museum: everything is beautiful to look at, but each exhibit is gone before you can begin to appreciate it, let alone understand it.