The Grand Budapest Hotel (15)

We’re still waiting patiently for Wes Anderson’s upcoming magnum opus: The French Dispatch, but let’s jump back into his most elaborate, and accomplished work to date.

Set in a fictional European spa town between the world wars, The Grand Budapest Hotel pivots around the character of Monsieur Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel concierge who believes that etiquette helps define civilization. Gustave’s morals are no match for his manners as he enjoys sexual congress with guests of both sexes. It’s a feast of a role, and Fiennes, exuding masterful verbal dexterity, nails every comic and dramatic nuance.

Anderson’s frequently imitated, but never bettered, style is on full display; utilising all his tricks, and with an ensemble cast that’ll make any filmmaker green with envy. It’s a ornamental toy box of a film, so delicious-looking you may want to lick the screen.

It is also, in the Anderson manner, shot through with humor, bittersweet heartbreak and a bruised romantic’s view of the past. It is also a rollicking caper that mixes theft, murder, a prison break and pastry recipes into a rousing free-forall that whips by like a dervish