I saw "Grand Budapest Hotel" and absolutely hated it. It is without a doubt the most pretentious example of a pretentious genre. It is so pretentious that within 2 minutes of the start, the film declares its writer a 'national treasure' worthy of being read by awestruck youths in the shadow of the author's cenotaph. Sadly, the pretentiousness does not decline from there.
Like most movies of this genre, it is beautifully shot, with superb sets, art direction, and costumes. It is an informative film in that it establishes once and for all that these things cannot carry a movie. It is a 'dramedy,' in that it is not funny enough to be a comedy, and lacks the emotional weight of a drama. All characters and events are robbed of any weight by the sheer number of silly, contrived flourishes. It, of course, is wistful. Wist permeates the film, like most of the films like it. So much wist. Not every goddamn movie needs to be about how it sucks to get old and how things used to be better in the good old days, when rich aristocrats were supported by hives of servants, and vast business enterprises reaped huge profits from catering to wealthy, idle hypochondriacs. Indeed, that is a definite analogy to the film itself, who's modern malaise is analogous to the folks who were into spa culture of the 19th century.
Also, ridiculously padded. At 1 hr 47, it seemed much longer than it needed to be, with nearly every sequence going much longer than they needed to, only for the non-payoff of one of the characters finally losing his temper and yelling 'get on with it.' Not to director, if your lousy pacing is the punchline, it probably isn't funny. Any tension the movie may have had is robbed by these overlong, self-indulgent sequences.
Oh god, I can't tell you how much I hated this movie. 1/10 /10
