Review: In 'Belfast,' director Kenneth Branagh tells a warm, personal story of childhood in Northern Ireland

The hardest moment in childhood is when you realize your parents aren’t superheroes, all-powerful beings with the ability to make all problems disappear — and Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical memory play “Belfast” beautifully captures life just before that moment.

After showing what Belfast looks like today, in living color, Branagh takes us back to August 15, 1969 — and, in black and white, depicts a happy summer day on the street where 8-year-old Buddy (played by newcomer Jude Hill) plays St. George with a wooden sword and a dustbin-lid shield. Then real fighting interrupts the reverie, as young thugs come down the street to target the homes of the Catholics living there. Buddy’s family is Protestant, but his Pa (Jamie Dornan) doesn’t subscribe to the terror tactics of the mob. Unfortunately, Pa is in London, where the jobs are, leaving Ma (Caitriona Balfe) to fend off the thugs’ extortion demands.

Buddy notices the changes in the neighborhood, as barricades go up and everyone gets questioned before entering the street. Being 8, though, he’s got other pressing concerns — like scoring well on his weekly maths exam, so he can be seated closer to the smart Catholic girl he has a crush on. Or hearing the romantic advice of his grandfather, known as Pop (Ciarán Hinds), and how he met Granny (Judi Dench) all those years ago.

Branagh, who wrote and directed, moves from memory to memory, of reading comic books and going to the movies, of getting sucked into petty crime by his cousins, of regretting it even before he’s caught. The boy gets glimpses of bigger problems, whether it’s from news reports on the radio or the barely understood arguments his parents have about possibly leaving Belfast because of the joblessness, poverty and growing threat of sectarian violence. 

Branagh leans reliably on the music of Belfast native Van Morrison, and references the TV and movies as markers of both the era and the emotions. “Star Trek” represents the promise of the future, while the British marionette adventure “Thunderbirds Are Go” is an icon of heroic helpers, and “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” telegraph the moral battle Pa is being drawn into for the sake of his family. Bursts of color pierce the black-and-white images, when young Buddy experiences the wonder of the movies (a clip from “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”) or the joys of the theater (with Branagh’s late friend, John Sessions, as a hammy theatrical version of Marley’s ghost).

Dornan and Balfe are nicely paired as Buddy’s parents, with Dornan’s quiet resolve contrasting nicely with Balfe’s more emotional outbursts. Hinds and Dench are delightful, as Buddy’s grandparents dispense hard-won wisdom and show by their example the joys of a long marriage. 

Like John Boorman’s “Hope and Glory” or Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Branagh’s “Belfast” is an imperfect recollection, since the light of history is refracted through the distorting lens of childhood. But the memories are sweet and magical, and it’s difficult to begrudge Branagh’s desire to live them again.

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‘Belfast’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, November 12, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for some violence and strong language. Running time: 98 minutes.

Review: 'Clifford the Big Red Dog' is a children's movie made with sincerity and good humor

I can be as cynical as the next critic, but even I can tell when a children’s movie is doing its job, weaving its movie magic with sincerity and a minimum of phony emotions or toilet humor — the way “Clifford the Big Red Dog” does.

Clifford, as most parents know, is the giant pooch, with fur the color of a fire truck, created by Norman Bridwell in a series of children’s books first published in 1963. His main personality traits are that he’s friendly, hard on the furniture, and intensely loyal to his human, a little girl named Emily Elizabeth.

In this version, Clifford is a tiny puppy left behind when Animal Control officers take in his mama and siblings. The pup makes his way to New York’s Central Park, where he’s befriended by a kindly old man named Mr. Bridwell, portrayed by the great John Cleese (who is also the narrator).

Emily Elizabeth, played by Darby Camp, is a sixth-grader living in Manhattan with her mom, Maggie (Sienna Guillory), a paralegal. When Maggie has to go to Chicago to help with a legal case, she reluctantly calls her irresponsible brother, Casey (Jack Whitehall) — who lives in the moving van in which he took his furniture when his girlfriend dumped him — to babysit for a couple of days.

Outside Emily Elizabeth’s snooty private school, where the rich girls mock her as a scholarship kid, E.E. and Casey are drawn to a tent, with the sign “Bridwell’s Animal Rescue.” Inside the tent, which looks like where Harry Potter stayed during the Quidditch World Cup, Bridwell has a menagerie of animals, but it’s little Clifford that connects with Emily at first sight. Casey, being the grown-up for once in his life, tells Emily that she can’t keep the puppy — and tells her again when the little doggy sneaks into her backpack and ends up in Maggie and Emily’s apartment.

Emily makes a wish that Clifford was “big and strong, and the world couldn’t hurt us.” The next morning, Clifford is suddenly 10 feet tall — and Emily and Casey have to figure out how to get him to a veterinarian (Kenan Thompson) without arousing the suspicions of the building’s surly super (David Alan Grier).

Soon, though, Clifford’s problems become as big as he is. Even in Manhattan, it’s difficult to hide a dog the size of a bus, so Clifford becomes a viral sensation quite quickly. This attracts the attention of Zac Tieren (Tony Hale), a tech billionaire whose efforts at creating giant genetically modified livestock are threatening to bankrupt him — so harvesting Clifford’s DNA could be the boost his company needs. Tieren mobilizes his security detail faster than you can say “Cruella deVil,” and the chase is on through New York.

Director Walt Becker (whose last movie was the misbegotten “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip”) and five credited screenwriters — a reflection of a near-decade in “development hell” — manage to strike the right balance of slapstick humor and warm tenderness. (Pro tip for filmmakers out there: You can limit the number of flatulence jokes you put in your movie.) The computer animation to create Clifford is well executed, real enough to fit in this live-action world, without diving into the “uncanny valley” where CG characters seem creepily real.

Whitehall, last seen as Emily Blunt’s dandy brother in “Jungle Cruise,” gives a strong comic performance, delivering his character’s one-liners smartly but never losing sight that he’s the immature grown-up in a children’s movie. Young Camp is the heart and soul of “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” authentically showing her love and affection for a computer character who will be added in post-production.

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‘Clifford the Big Red Dog’

★★★

Opened Wednesday, November 10, in theaters, and streaming on Paramount+. Rated PG for impolite humor, thematic elements and mild action. Running time: 97 minutes.

Review: In 'Spencer,' director Pablo Larrain shows us Princess Diana's world, but Kristen Stewart gets inside her soul

Director Pablo Larrain’s “Spencer,” like his previous film “Jackie,” is not a historical biography but an emotional one — a lyrical attempt to use fiction to get inside the mind and heart of its subject: Diana, Princess of Wales.

And, with Kristen Stewart giving a death-defying performance as the troubled but headstrong royal — capturing the moment when she resolves to separate from Prince Charles — the movie is devastatingly moving.

Larrain and screenwriter Steven Knight (“Locke,” “Dirty Pretty Things”) zero in on three days: The Christmas holidays of 1991, when the royal family traditionally gathers at Sandringham, their country estate. While Charles (Jack Farthing), Queen Elizabeth (Stella Gonet), and the rest of the family arrive in their stately Rolls-Royces, Diana is driving alone in a Porsche convertible — and, as the most photographed woman in the world, freaking out the local cafe when she stops to ask for directions.

While the royals are upstairs, the servants toil below, mindful of the gossip they hear and sometimes spread. A sign in the kitchen reads: “Keep noise to a minimum. They can hear you.” The “they” is assumed to be the royals, though it could just as easily be the pack of reporters and paparazzi on the edge of the grounds.

The head chef, Darren (Sean Harris), runs his kitchen staff like an officer commanding his troops. A military air also pervades upstairs, where the chief of servants, Major Gregory (Timothy Spall), oversees everything from staff assignments to securing the grounds to keep out the watchful press. “I watch so that others will not see,” Gregory tells Diana, in a subtle warning about her too-public outbursts of honesty.

Diana tries to find someone on the staff in which to confide. The closest is her dresser, Maggie (Sally Hawkins), who carefully prepares every outfit for every occasion taking place over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. But as soon as she starts to trust Maggie, another dresser is assigned to help Diana — a confirmation, in the princess’ mind, that the staff and family are watching her every move.

Some level of paranoia is understandable, considering both the pressures of being a public figure and the private knowledge of Charles’ longtime affair with another woman. The name “Camilla” is never uttered in this film, but the pain on Diana’s face when she talks about how Charles bought “her” the same pearls he gave Diana for Christmas is unmistakeable.

Diana’s mental state is a precarious subject in Larrain’s telling, with bouts of bulimia and cutting depicted. She also wonders if ghosts haunt Sandringham, and reading about Anne Boleyn — a queen beheaded because the king, Henry VIII, was having an affair — prompts her to dream about her ill-fated predecessor.

The joy in Diana’s life is her time with her boys, William (Jack Nielen) and Harry (Freddie Spry), hanging out away from the official royal gatherings, and playing games where they must tell each other the truth. But when Diana objects to Charles taking Will pheasant hunting, a manly Windsor tradition, Charles talks at cross-purposes in an elegantly staged scene of deliberately obtuse conversation.

“Diana, there have to be two of you,” Charles advises her. “There’s the real one, and the one they take pictures of.”

Later, the Queen comments privately to Diana about the many photos taken of her. “The only one that matters is the one on the 10-pound note,” the Queen observes. “That’s when you realize you’re only currency.”

And if there’s anyone alive who understands the value of that currency, it’s Stewart. The actress has been grist for the celebrity gossip mill since she kissed Robert Pattinson in the first “Twilight” movie in 2008. She brings that knowledge to her portrayal of Diana, which isn’t an attempt at a note-perfect impersonation — though her English accent is spot on — as much as an effort to crawl around in Diana’s mind and figure out what made her tick.

Larrain augments Stewart’s exploration by re-creating the trappings of royal life in almost comically lush detail. Those scenes, beautifully rendered by production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas and captured by cinematographer Claire Mathon (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”), reach their full claustrophobic pinnacle thanks to Jonny Greenwood’s score — sometimes dissonant, sometimes jazzy and always reflecting Diana’s inner mood.

“Spencer” becomes a fascinating showcase for Stewart, giving the toughest and most brilliant performance of her career. She captures the fragility and, eventually, the maternal ferocity that made Diana a people’s princess.

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’Spencer’

★★★1/2

Opening Friday, November 5, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some language. Running time: 117 minutes.

Review: 'Red Notice' is a strained action comedy that takes three big stars and can't make much of them

Three A-list stars in one action comedy does not add up to more fun in “Red Notice,” a caper movie that’s surprisingly charmless considering the big names at its center: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot.

Johnson plays John Hartley, an FBI profiler who’s assisting Interpol in Rome, trying to thwart the plans of “the world’s second greatest art thief,” Nolan Booth — that’s Reynolds — to steal one of Cleopatra’s eggs from a museum. (In a History Channel-style prologue, it’s explained that there are three large egg-shaped gold treasures, originally a gift from Antony to Cleopatra; the whereabouts of two are known, but the third disappeared centuries ago. Feel free to disregard this information the moment you hear it, because the characters do.)

Sure enough, Hartley spots Booth and proceeds to chase him through the halls of the museum, with the agile Booth dodging the massive Hartley and, eventually, escaping. But when Booth gets to his secret home in Bali, he’s surprised to find Hartley and an Interpol team ready to arrest him.

Back in Rome, though, Hartley learns from his Interpol contact, Inspector Urvashi Das (Ritu Arya), that someone switched the seized egg — and that somehow several million euros mysteriously appeared in a Swiss bank account registered in Hartley’s name. Hartley swears he’s been framed, but Das doesn’t believe him. Hartley is swiftly arrested and spirited to an Interpol “black site,” a Russian prison where Hartley is put in a cell with Booth.

Hartley and Booth learn who set them up: The world’s greatest art thief, known as The Bishop (and played by Gadot). The Bishop wants the information that Booth has — the location of the long-lost third egg — and will spring him from prison if he coughs it up. Instead, faster than you can say “we aren’t partners,” Hartley and Booth team up to intercept The Bishop at the location of Egg No. 2: The mansion of a villainous and filthy rich arms dealer (Chris Diamantopoulos).

Writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber — who directed Johnson in “Skyscraper” and “Central Intelligence,” but has yet to match the lofty heights of his 2004 debut, “Dodgeball” — creates a scenario that takes his characters all over the world, but then directs it in such a flat, airless style that every moment looks like it was filmed in a nondescript Atlanta backlot (which some of it was). The script also gives room for the three leads to banter, but only gives Reynolds enough witty lines to generate any laughs.

Gadot seems to be having the most fun here, letting out the evil side that we never see her display as Wonder Woman. But even with her wrapping a sensuous leg around Johnson on a dance floor, there’s no chemistry on view. 

“Red Notice” is reportedly the most expensive movie Netflix has ever made — with $20 million paydays for Gadot and Reynolds (who also got a cameo for his Aviator Gin label), and a bigger one for Johnson, who’s also a producer, and $10 million for Thurber. But it doesn’t seem there was anyone with enough sway to tell them that all the sassy banter, heartfelt male bonding and references to better movies (including a wild turn into Indiana Jones territory) wasn’t working. 

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‘Red Notice’

★★

Opens Friday, November 5, in theaters; available for streaming on Netflix starting November 12. Rated PG-13 for violence and action, some sexual references, and strong language. Running time: 115 minutes.

Review: 'Eternals' is an uneasy mix of Marvel's action dynamics and director Chloé Zhao's ethereal imagery

What used to be a thrill of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was how individual directors could, within the confines of the superhero sandbox, play around with genre conventions — which is how we got Joe Johnston making a war movie (“Captain America: The First Avenger”), the Russo brothers making a political thriller (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) and Taika Waititi making a comedic fantasy flick (“Thor: Ragnarok”).

It’s not often, though, that a director’s vision is so at odds with the audience demands of a big-budget blockbuster as what happens with Chloé Zhao and Marvel’s “Eternals.”

Zhao is a wizard at mood, creating beauty out of the prosaic details of van life in her Oscar-winning “Nomadland” or the rodeo circuit in “The Rider.” Nobody this side of Terrence Malick can evoke such a sense of wonder out of something as simple as a sunrise.

Putting a passel of otherworldly super-beings in front of those sunrises — and staying true to both Zhao’s sensibilities and the requirements that those superheroes, you know, do something — is another matter altogether.

The Eternals, created in the comics by Jack Kirby in the 1970s, are 10 beings who arrived on Earth at the beginning of history, tasked by their godlike creator, a Celestial named Arishem, with two missions: To nudge humanity gently toward progress, and to defeat an evil monster species, the  Deviants, that appear bent on destroying all human life.

The Eternals do this with a variety of powers. Ikarus (Richard Madden) flies — and, more often, floats — and fires lasers from his eyes. Sersi (Gemma Chan) can alter inanimate matter, and has an empathic connection to humanity. Sprite (Lia McHugh) is a shape-shifter, but usually in the body of a teen girl. Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) fires bolts of energy from his fingers. Druig (Barry Keoghan) can control humans’ minds. Phantos (Brian Tyree Henry) is an inventor, gradually introducing technological advances to the humans. Gilgamesh (Don Lee) is the strongest of the bunch, while Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) is the fastest (as well as being deaf). Thena (Angelina Jolie) is a fearsome warrior, while Ajak (Salma Hayek) is their leader, the link back to the Celestials.

With 10 heroes, “Eternals” has space for representation — Black, Latina, south Asian, east Asian, deaf and, as we learn later, LGBTQ — which can only be a good thing as Marvel’s universe tries to emulate our own.

The script (credited to Zhou, writing alone and with Patrick Burleigh, and Ryan and Kaz Firpo) sends these Eternals to various moments in Earth’s history, starting about 7,000 B.C., battling Deviants without changing human history too strongly. It’s later explained that they did not interfere in Thanos’ plan to eliminate half of all life in the universe because it wasn’t Deviant-related — but Ajak and others admired the humans’ resilience and ability to fight back.

In the 21st century, though, the Deviants are believed to be dead, and the Eternals have scattered to build their own lives. That’s how we find Sersi in London, working at a museum (oddly, the same job Diana Prince has in “Wonder Woman 1984,” just in a different city) and having a seemingly normal romance with a human coworker, Dane Whitman (Kit Harington). But when a Deviant attacks in London, and Ikarus and Sprite show up to fight it, Sersi must return to her old mission.

Cue the “getting the band back together” montage, which has its fun moments, like finding Kingo is now a Bollywood action star, and Phantos is happily married to a guy in Chicago and fixing their kid’s bike. Other revelations, like Druig’s fiefdom in the Amazon or Thena battling the superhero version of Alzheimer’s, are less cheery.

Along the way, the Eternals learn something unsettling about the Celestials — and each must decide how to respond.

Zhou and cinematographer Ben Davis (whose Marvel history includes “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Doctor Strange” and “Captain Marvel”) create some beautiful images of superheroes posing superheroically on beaches and near erupting volcanoes. Zhou concentrates on character, particularly Chan’s Sersi finding her emotional voice through her compassion for humanity, in ways Marvel movies often don’t.

It’s the thing Marvel movies are supposed to have — action — where “Eternals” doesn’t quite keep up. The action set pieces have a robotic sameness to them, serviceable but not dynamic, like a director’s afterthought rather than an organic part of the whole. 

“Eternals” isn’t a terrible Marvel movie, just an average one. Considering the talent at work, and the potential of such a world-changing set of heroes, it could have been so much more.

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‘Eternals’

★★★

Opens Friday, November 5, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for fantasy violence and action, some language and brief sexuality. Running time: 157 minutes.

Review: 'Passing' finds shades of gray in its black-and-white telling of a classic story about race and prejudice

Actor Rebecca Hall’s directing debut “Passing” is a delicate but powerful masterpiece of form and performance, telling a decades-old story of race and discrimination that’s as fresh as today’s news.

Based on Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, which Hall’s screenplay adapts with painstaking care, the story begins when Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson), a Harlem woman who can but seldom does pass for white, has a chance encounter with a former acquaintance, Claire Kendry (Ruth Negga). Claire is also light-skinned Black, but is living as a white woman, married to a prosperous businessman, John (Alexander Skarsgård), who is an unabashed bigot and doesn’t know that Claire is Black.

Claire becomes a regular visitor to Irene’s home in Harlem, which she shares with her doctor husband, Bryan (André Holland), and their two boys, who are all darker-skinned than Irene. Claire, her flask always filled (this is the age of Prohibition, after all), also insinuates herself into Irene’s social circle; Irene organizes fund-raising dances for the Negro Welfare League, and is good friends with a white author, Hugh Wentworth (Bill Camp), who is sympathetic to the cause of civil rights — though not above commenting on Claire’s free-wheeling behavior.

Claire’s presence, and absence, also stirs up disagreements in the Redfield marriage — particularly as Bryan presses Irene to leave America for some place with less overt discrimination.

Hall and cinematographer Edu Grau filmed “Passing” in black and white, in a strict 4-by-3 screen ratio, which matches the 1920s setting — the era of Al Jolson doing blackface, mind you — and concentrates the eye on the expressive, radiant faces of Thompson and Negga. The period look, realized by production designer Nora Mendis and costume designer Marci Rodgers and their teams, is exquisite.

Hall puts much care and detail into every shot, but her biggest coup is pairing Thompson and Negga, who embody the two sides of the racial divide and the psychological push-and-pull that both bonds and separates the characters. These talented women — the two in front of the camera, and the one  behind it — make “Passing” a sparkling gem with some surprisingly sharp edges. 

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‘Passing’ 

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, November 3, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City); available for streaming on Netflix starting November 10. Rated PG-13 for thematic material, some racial slurs and smoking. Running time: 98 minutes.

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This review originally appeared on this site on January 30, 2021, when the movie premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'Last Night in Soho' is a hallucinatory time trip that goes from '60s swing to psychological terror

With the deliciously surprising “Last Night in Soho,” director Edgar Wright delivers a movie that slips through genres — romantic fantasy, psychological thriller, murder mystery and revenge drama — with  subtle elegance and ferocious power.

Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) is an aspiring fashion designer who’s leaving her life in rural England to study clothing design in London. It’s a culture shock for the shy Eloise, who makes regular phone calls to her grandma (played by ’60s screen icon Rita Tushingham) and tries not to notice her visions of her late mother (Aimee Cassettari) when she looks in the mirror.

After a disastrous night in student housing, Eloise decides to get a flat in Soho — a simple attic room in a house owned by the gruff Ms. Collins (Dame Diana Rigg, in her last role before her death in September 2020). The flat also seems to serve as a portal, transporting Eloise in her imagination to 1965.

It’s in this dreamy rendition of Carnaby Street, where the movie house is debuting “Thunderball,” where Eloise first spots Sandie (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), an aspiring singer who catches every man’s eye in the dance club. Soon, Eloise is getting an upclose look at Sandie, because she has turned into Sandie’s reflection in the mirrors of the swanky club — and, in one fantastic sequence, Sandie and Eloise pop in and out of the picture while dancing with Jack (Matt Smith), the man who’s going to make Sandie’s dreams of stardom come true.

At first, Eloise luxuriates in this ‘60s dream scene, and starts letting Sandie’s style influence her design-school work. Eloise even gets her hair bleached blonde to match Sandie’s, and gets a job as a Soho barmaid to get closer to the scene. But Eloise slowly sees that Sandie’s dreams turned sour, as Jack reveals his true, dark nature.

Wright (“Baby Driver,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) and screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns (“1917”) masterfully shift tones, as Eloise’s fascination with Sandie’s glamorous life curdles into concern for her muse in her downward slide — and into fear that she’s losing her mind to a paranoia that makes her suspicious of everything, namely the smooth-talking old man (Terence Stamp) who hangs out at the bar where she works. Wright’s imagery grows more unsettling, his mood more Hitchcockian, with some spectacular twists before the end.

Wright’s pacing is dynamic, the camera work (by “Oldboy” cinematographer Chung-soon Chung) is hallucinogenic, and the period details are seductive. Populating this ‘60s-fueled story with icons of the era — Rigg, Stamp and Tushingham — is a calculated risk that pays off big. So does Wright’s knack for picking the perfect ‘60s radio hit for every moment, from Petula Clark’s “Downtown” (which Taylor-Joy re-creates into an eerie ballad) to James Ray’s “I Got My Mind Set on You.” (And all this time I thought George Harrison was the first to record that song. Live and learn.)

What makes it work are the twinned performances by Taylor-Joy and McKenzie. Taylor-Joy (“The Queen’s Gambit”) has the more showy role, the hyper-confident performer manipulated into sleazy doings. (Side note: A smart producer would be working on a movie where Taylor-Joy and Emma Stone play evil sisters.) Meanwhile, McKenzie (“Old,” “Jojo Rabbit”) burrows into the role of the mousy Eloise, and reveals an inner strength to confront the ghosts that her visions have stirred up six decades later.

“Last Night in Soho” is an intoxicating movie, a thrilling ride down a darkening road on the strength of dream logic and masterful storytelling and movie craft. It’s a time trip like no other, so hop on as soon as you can.

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‘Last Night in Soho’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, October 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for bloody violence, sexual content, language, brief drug material and brief graphic nudity. Running time: 116 minutes.

Review: 'The French Dispatch' is an oddball collection of stories that show Wes Anderson at his most whimsical and detail-oriented

One enters “The French Dispatch” hoping Wes Anderson has prepared a sumptuous five-course cinematic meal — and what we find is an hors d’oeuvres tray, each dish prepared beautifully but without a cohesive beginning, middle and end.

The movie — which Anderson directed and wrote with story credit shared with pals Roman Coppola, Hugh Guinness and Jason Schwartzman — is five short stories loosely tied to a central theme: They are all depictions of magazine articles from a publication called The French Dispatch. This magazine is the creation of an eccentric Kansas newspaperman, Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), and somewhat inspired by the literary-minded articles of The New Yorker back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Really, that set-up is an excuse for Anderson to work at his most whimsical, and to mix black-and-white with color and play with aspect ratios for his different tales.

The five stories, mostly in order, are:

• Howitzer’s obituary, which serves as the framing device for the others.

• A travelogue of the fictional Ennui-Sur-Blasé, led by the bicycling correspondent Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson).

• An art critic J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton) describes an imprisoned artist (Benicio Del Toro), a guard (Léa Seydoux) who poses nude for him, and an art gallerist (Adrien Brody) doing time for tax fraud who discovers the painter’s greatness.

• An account by cynical war correspondent Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand), who encounters and inspires a headstrong student revolutionary (Timothée Chalamet).

• Another expatriate writer, Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright), recalls his greatest story for the magazine: A profile of Nescaffier (Stephen Park), head chef to the city’s police commissioner (Mathieu Amalric), and how his cooking foiled a kidnapping plot.

The bicycle travelogue is fast and flighty, as Sazarec rattles off more observations about Ennui’s seedier side than one can keep track of. Krementz’ story is wistful in its appraisal of how young love and political idealism go hand in hand.

Both Berensen’s story and Wright’s are complex affairs, firstly because they are staged in a way where the storyteller is narrating — Berensen in a lecture hall, Wright on a TV talk show (with Liev Schreiber as the interviewer) — for a satisfactory story-within-a-story effect.

The artist’s story is a tricky dissection of the artist’s process and the art dealer’s ways of turning expression into cash. (The story also features Seydoux, last seen as James Bond’s lady love, fully unclothed and looking divine.) 

Wright’s tale, the best of the lot, is practically a full movie in its own, a police procedural complete with a shootout with a bunch of kidnappers (a crew that includes Edward Norton and Saoirse Ronan) and a car chase (shown in animation, but not as richly rendered as “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” or “Isle of Dogs”). Jeffrey Wright’s depiction of the writer, clearly modeled on the social commentator James Baldwin, adds a layer of soulfulness, an outsider digging into the life of another outcast, Nescaffier.

The weakest link in Anderson’s chain is the one that’s supposed to bind the others together: The framing device of the dearly departed editor, Howitzer. We get some flashes of the old newspaperman’s tenacity, and his deft handling of his writers, outwardly irascible but ultimately tender. But Anderson leans too heavily on Murray’s natural bearlike charm, as he dispenses such sage writing advice as “just try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose.”

Anderson is definitely in his element, creating intricate set pieces that move like the most exquisitely engineered wind-up music boxes, as delicate and as light as a souffle. Anderson has become a magnet for actors wanting to get in on the act; besides those already mentioned, the cast includes Willem Dafoe, Henry Winkler, Bob Balaban, Lois Smith, Christoph Waltz, Tony Revolori, Lyna Khoudri, Elisabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne and, as the narrator, Anjelica Huston.

No, it doesn’t actually build up to much, other than a showcase for Anderson’s fondness for old-school journalism, oddball outcasts, and perfectly pitched deadpan humor. There’s nothing wrong with the anthology approach — just don’t go into “The French Dispatch” expecting more than some small, well-polished gems.

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‘The French Dispatch’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, October 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for graphic nudity, some sexual references and language. Running time: 108 minutes.