The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson’s new film is the story of an imaginary middle European hotel in the imaginary Republic of Zubrowka in the mostly very real year of 1932. But it’s also the tale of how a modern-day resident of that hotel, the mysterious and rather sorrowful Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), came to be its owner. And that story, in turn, centers on the remarkable character and career of Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the legendary and perhaps improbable concierge of that establishment, the Grand Budapest Hotel, in its heyday. The 1932 part of the story is central to everything else in the film. The rise of Nazism lingers on the horizon while center stage is occupied by the semi-picaresque adventures of M. Gustave and an orphaned refugee named Zero (Tony Revelori) and the farcical melodrama that ensues when M. Gustave finds himself named executor of the estate of an elderly woman of wealth (Tilda Swinton). Overall, tragicomic high spirits in deteriorating circumstances are the film’s strong suit, and Fiennes’ superb multifaceted performance ensures M. Gustave’s status as the atypical hero at the heart of Anderson’s vision. Cinemark 14 and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated R