Reid Buskirk

Two Warnings: 1) Spoilers ahead. 2) This movie is not for everyone. But if you love Wes Anderson and can become comfortable with a deliberate lack of clear meaning, then you have precisely seen the point. This documentary within a movie details a number of characters with a Hemingway-esque, iceberg-theory level of depth. They are deadpan, but absurd. The setting is both decidedly surreal and purposefully stagnant. The imagery is intimate and yet seemingly alienating (pun intended) all in one. But the central point that the one star reviews seem to miss is this: in life, there is no point. Nothing is given. Each and every character has a seemingly hopeless struggle of finding meaning in their existence, and they do not find it. Instead, they must create it from the world around them, and suffer in the unknown until they do. To me, that is exactly what made this movie beautiful. I spent most of the movie enjoying Anderson’s classic still frames, oversaturated colors, and quirky dialogue but wondering to myself, “what is the point of all of this”. It is not until the final minutes of Act 3 that he tells us there is no meaning. Life does not give us clear answers, it does not justify our suffering nor our grief. It is upon us, and upon each character in this play within a docu within a movie, to find a solution to this meaninglessness, and to find their own reasons to live. It pains me to see the amount of people on which this point is lost. But then again, like I said, the movie is not for everyone. But if you can relish in the sentimentality that exists seemingly in paradox to the proposed meaninglessness, then you can find joy and comfort in this movie, and I hope that you will.