After surviving a number of assassination attempts and a plane crash, industrialist Zsa-Zsa Korda tries to reconnect with his estranged nun daughter while also trying to collect enough money to finish his dream projects he’s been working on for 30 years and avoid several more assassination attempts from his competitors.
My favorite thing about this movie is Benicio Del Toro’s character and performance. Now I do think people might have a hard time connecting with his character, mostly because his character is reserved, ruthless, and manipulative he can be, but he’s also like darkly funny because he’s very serious about everything he says, even if a lot of it is ridiculous, so it comes off as absurdly funny, which I quite enjoyed. But I recognize it’s a “your mileage may vary” situation. He kind of felt like Charles Foster Kane from Citizen Kane meets Scrooge McDuck having a near-death experience in a midlife crisis.
I think most people will like Michael Cera the most; he rides the line of absurd and sincere quite impressively and is a very sweet and likable character.
Mia Threapleton did an excellent job playing Korda’s estranged nun daughter, and while her character may be a bit too cold and artificial for my taste, her deadpan delivery was used to great comedic effect that I liked.
This film has a big and impressive cast, who all do a good and entertaining job, but I think my favorites were Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston, just for the oddball buddy relationship they had with themselves and the other characters.
The tone is definitely unique. Like most Wes Anderson movies, everyone is extremely deadpan & flat with overall worded dialogue, but there is a good amount of heart that comes through, not as much as his other films, but enough that I was engrossed throughout.
There was a big streak of dark humor and over-the-top slapstick in most scenes that I really enjoyed; I’m always a sucker for that kind of humor. Also, I saw the action movie Ballerina the same weekend, so it was interesting seeing two very different films in both style and tone sharing send-ups to slapstick, and in particular, the Three Stooges… What a nice coincidence!
The plot is a little convoluted; there are a lot of business deals and percentages and business espionage going on that, while I understood what was going on in the broad strokes, if you asked me to explain it, I couldn’t.
This will surprise no one, but his camera work and set decoration are spectacular as always; his symmetrical dollhouse framing is in top form, and he gets plenty of interesting, almost cartoonish shots.
I liked all the different locations they went to; this film is very colorful and bright, even when they’re in the desert or even in black-and-white.
There was a storyline that involved the nun daughter's mom that I thought had an interesting setup but not much of a payoff, which was disappointing because it was actually quite interesting and could’ve given some real insight into the characters.
I liked Bill Murray’s cameo; it was cute.
The resolution to the plot, I thought, was a little too simple and kind of robbed the rest of the movie of stakes, but it led to an epilogue I thought was interesting.
The credits were cool and something I hadn’t seen before, so big props, Wes.
So while I overall enjoyed the film for the creativity and performances, I think a general audience and even Wes Anderson fans might find it hard to connect to this movie due to its rigid characters and complicated plot, but the heart of the characters and its scenes of humor will make most people happy to invest if they're interested. I give it a high three stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️.
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