The French Dispatch Review

Wes Anderson’s latest feature, The French Dispatch, sparked an interest in many different people throughout the last couple of years. From its announcement in 2019, through its uncountable delays and, finally, its release by the end of this year, I myself can say: we’ve been waiting for this one. Starring the cast of any modern film lover’s dream–from Timothée Chalamet to Léa Seydoux–the film tells the tale of a magazine called “The French Dispatch”, a French publication of an American newspaper that looks a bit too much like the New Yorker Magazine.  

As in some of his films, such as The Royal Tenenbaums and The Great Budapest Hotel, the director chooses to make a literary approach to his story. Here, that becomes a constituting part of the film, from plot to structure. The film takes the shape of the magazine, from cover, letter from the editor-in-chief, introductory story, and different editorials, taking us through The French Dispatch’s final issue. 

The fictional publication operated between 1925 and 1975–the year of Arthur Howitzer Jr.'s (Bill Murray) death along with the magazines. The little fictional New Yorker is based in the fictional French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé–or Wes Anderson’s take on 1960’s Paris–where our first story begins. A brief travelogue of the city is presented by the writer Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson), who bikes around town showing us its views and people, keeping journalistic neutrality as he shows the hookers and delinquents that roam around that cinematographic setting. 

As he gets back, our three feature stories begin: the unexpected story of killer painter Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro), the May of 1968 resembling student revolution of Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet) and Juliette (Lyna Khoudri), and the gastronomy column turned police investigation by Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright). Each feature shows us a little bit about these three very distinct worlds and stories whilst revealing those free-spirited Americans who chose to live their lives in search of the perfect stories, the journalists of The French Dispatch. 

Since its release in Cannes, the film has been described as “a love letter to journalism”. That can be corrected to more of a love letter to magazine culture, the heat of the newsroom, the relationship between the authors, thorn between journalistic objectivity and literary descriptions, and the final result, a beautifully written and illustrated print magazine to keep within that pile of books you refused to buy on kindle just to feel it in your hands. 

Anderson sends reporters into the turmoil of 20th century France to write a few silly stories turned into tales of moral ambiguity and political trouble. As the last reporter remembers that what he has is not a photographic memory, but rather a “typographic memory”, the image of glossy 1970s magazines and well-dressed journalists writing away in their typewriters brings a somewhat nostalgic feel even for those who didn’t live those days. 

Beyond journalism, Wes Anderson creates, within The French Dispatch, a memoir of French cinema, evoking directly the images and sounds of the French New Wave into his film. French cafés, noisy students, interchanging fast-paced scenes, and images of all sorts: all about this film screams “I wish I were Jean-Luc Godard”. 

Even the soundtrack evokes his films–Alexandre Desplat’s  “The Berensen Bectures at the Clampette Collection''–sounds a bit too much like À Bout de Souffle’s “New York Herald Tribune'', and Masculin Féminin star Chantal Goya is also featured in the track with her  “Tu M’as Trop Menti”. The whole second act itself seems to have come out of Godard’s Masculin Féminin or the revolutionary La Chinoise. And the tributes go on: Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang, Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle, and the Dick Tracy Show cartoons.

The film finishes off with the death of the editor-in-chief and the subsequent end of the magazine, requested by him in his obituary. As journalists, illustrators, and coffee grabbing assistants shed a few tears in the “no crying” editing room, the three stories come together, converging into an emotional tale of beautiful heroism, made to inspire the creatives of this world such as the ones who read and write for Unpublished Magazine.