Wes is Back, Tell a Friend: Review

Shortly after the release of Asteroid City earlier this year, auteur Wes Anderson is back again. This time, he has kindly graced us with four short films based on loved mini tales from Roald Dahl. The films were released on Netflix, starting with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar on the 27th of September and followed each day after by The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison. The shorts each tell a distinct story, but share recurring cast members, Anderson’s signature style, and a large focus on narration. The films centre a character reciting Dahl’s words to the camera whilst they, and the other characters, act out the scenarios. This stylistic choice, made by Anderson to bring Dahl’s stories to life as accurately and respectfully as possible, gives each film the essence of a stage play. They thus fall into Anderson’s filmography as a new approach to a familiar aesthetic.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar has a longer running time than the rest at 40 minutes and tells Dahl’s story of a rich man who learns how to see without using his eyes. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the titular character alongside Anderson’s trusty Ralph Fiennes who appears in each film in the role of Roald Dahl. It was laced with symmetrical goodness, narrative punch, and so many “oh my god this is so aesthetic” moments, as every good Anderson film is. The story was probably the most developed out of the series of shorts, hence the longer running time, and provided a perfectly enjoyable watch.

The Swan stood out as more ‘simplistic’ than the others (if that’s a word you could ever use to describe Anderson). It contained minimal props or set extravagance and focused more on the emotive narration from Rupert Friend, who was followed around by young actors playing the characters in the story as if he was giving them stage directions. A simple delivery of a striking story, that I felt worked well, but wasn’t my favourite of the four.

The Rat Catcher, on the other hand, was my favourite. It told a weird story with weird characters masterfully. Ralph Fiennes embodied the role of the rat catcher with ease, making me feel equally uncomfortable and disgusted as I was intrigued with his being. I also loved the inclusion of the rat towards the end, but maybe this is because Wes’s depiction of animals in films like Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr Fox have a special place in my heart.

Poison, the final of the series, honestly fell a little flat to me. Perhaps I was Anderson-ed out (though I highly doubt that considering how obsessed I am with his work) or perhaps it just didn’t quite capture the story as well as the others. It was suspenseful enough and I loved Dev Patel’s performance, but something just didn’t quite click as satisfyingly as it did in the others.

All in all, Anderson has fed us once again with some lovely eye food. Dahl’s stories have been brought to life in a way that somehow both individualistically serves Anderson’s filmography whilst paying homage to one of the world’s most loved and greatest storytellers. I particularly loved the touch of including a title card at the end of each film with a little context to Dahl’s stories such as where he got the idea or when he wrote them. These shorts, alongside The French Dispatch and Asteroid City have sweetly solidified Anderson’s brilliant new wave of films.

Originally published in: ENRG Culture

Photo Credits: Netflix.