By Samantha Schwartz ‘16

Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a compulsively witty maze of a movie that follows stories-within-stories, similar to all other Anderson films. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” follows the adventures of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel, and Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend.

The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune. Zero tells the story years later at The Budapest Hotel, which he comes to own. As a newcomer to larger roles, Revolori carries the film with such prominence and promise as Zero. Revolori stands with Fiennes, the veteran of many films, especially Anderson’s, and they play off each other exceptionally.

Anderson is one of the rare filmmakers who has created his own genre of filmmaking with idiosyncratic characters, intricate detailed and colorful production designs and well-rounded stories full of problems, solutions and plot twists. Different from his other more fantasy and imaginative films, such as “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “The Grand Budapest” delves into the backdrop of the time period, late 1930s, and underlying stories while telling a heartfelt, nostalgic and tragic story.

Anderson keeps his movies simple yet tastefully extravagant with soundtrack and film-technique similarities and the repetition of actors, including Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and more whom all starred in multiple of Anderson’s films. With “Budapest Hotel,” Anderson takes his style and exceedingly perfects it, which was highly doubted possible after his previous excellent production of “Moonrise Kingdom.” “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is one of Anderson’s must-sees.