The ultimate Wes Anderson

I'll probably come back to this post to expand upon it, but I watched The French Dispatch on Disney Plus on the weekend, and really enjoyed it.

 I was concerned about the trajectory of recent Wes Anderson movies - I kept finding them underwhelming since Fantastic Mr Fox -  but this one in much, much more consistently funny than those, and the visual style is just so over the top that I found myself pretty much continually gobsmacked at his imagination.  

I wasn't expecting it to be so intensely satirical of French culture, albeit in what I think was an obviously affectionate way, and because there is no racial element in an American making fun of French foibles, it didn't give me the uncomfortable feeling that I got from Isle of Dogs that it was close to the edge of encouraging racist stereotypes.  

That said, I can imagine some people hating it for being all surface and no substance.   But the surface is so spectacularly well thought out, and the humour so eccentric, I found it pretty delightful.   (And, I did kind of get it as a affectionate, funny, imitation of the style of The New Yorker.)