‘The French Dispatch’ has been premiered at Cannes Film Festival.
Gatekeepers News reports that a France-set movie, ‘The French Dispatch’ has been premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday.
Searchlight and Wes Anderson decided to hold off on unveiling the movie until the festival’s 2021 edition after the 2020 edition at which it was originally slated date to be premiered at was canceled due to the pandemic.
The film which played like gangbusters at the Palais, garnered a nine-minute ovation (best of the fest so far) and potentially positioned it for a run at the Palme d’Or.
‘The French Dispatch’ has been scheduled to screen next at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 24. The movie will be released in the U.S. release on Oct. 22.
Given Anderson’s peculiar track record on the film, there have been speculations that the film could contend for Oscar.
His 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel received great applauds across the board by Academy members, as it received nine noms, including picture, director, and original screenplay, and won costume design, makeup/hairstyling, original score, and production design.
However, Anderson’s other live-action films were almost entirely shunned as his 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums and 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom (each received only an original screenplay nom), even though they were comparably well received by critics and audiences.
(Anderson did receive best animated feature noms for 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and 2018’s Isle of Dogs.)
His films all have a very specific style and sensibility, ‘The French Dispatch’ is as Anderson-y as any of other films, with a large ensemble that includes many members of his stock company (Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, etc.); alongside incomparable production value (incredibly detailed sets, miniatures, models, etc.); and with an offbeat and eccentric story (a love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional twentieth-century French city).
Hollywood Reporter David Rooney in his review, described ‘The French Dispatch’ as “episodic by nature and less nourishing in narrative terms than some of Anderson’s through-line features.”
The members of his cast present at the Cannes premiere admitted that Anderson is the one thread holding everything together after he insisted on standing alone for the first few minutes of the post-film ovation.
It’s just July, so months are still left for the Academy members to decide on Oscar nominees.
However, it would be hard to imagine the film production design, costume design, and makeup/hairstyling not receiving noms, and probably its original screenplay and original score (by Alexandre Desplat), too; since 2021 is a year in which the Academy will return to a guaranteed 10 best picture nominees.
