“There are still faint glimmers of
civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known
as humanity,” waxes Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel,
Wes Anderson's pastry-lite eulogy for a golden pre-war age of
chivalrous romanticism, classy refinement, and gaudy luxury.
Though now a desolate and scarcely
frequented relic of a bygone era, the Grand Budapest was once the
most lavishly appointed palace of 1930s Zubrowka – a fictional
European nation on the brink of an unnamed war – where it was run
by the fey and fastidious concierge Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes)
and his faithful lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori). We hear Gustave and
Zero's story as recounted by a much older Zero (F. Murray Abraham) to
a curious author (Jude Law), whose subsequent writings of the
interview are being read decades later by an anonymous student...
… But back to the story within the
story within the story:
M. Gustave's suave gold-digging ways
have won him the bequeathal of a priceless painting – the
hilariously mundane “Boy With Apple” – from a recently deceased
old dame (Tilda Swinton); Just one of Gustave's many wooed blondes.
Intent on rescuing the art from the conniving hands of the old lady's
son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and the brass-armoured knuckles of his hit
man Joplin (Wilem Dafoe), Gustave and Zero make off with the McGuffin
in the name of historical preservation... until, that is, they decide
a few seconds later to screw preservation and cash in on the
painting.
