THE FRENCH DISPATCH **

 It's being described as the most "Andersonian', (am I making these words up just the way Wes does), of Wes Anderson's films and yes, "The French Dispatch" really is the synthesis of everything that's come before but rather than his masterpiece it looks like he may finally have run out of ideas. It's certainly his most visually striking film; image after image dazzles the eye and the technique is typically sublime but this most overt homage to 'The New Yorker' and its ilk is seriously short on substance.

We're meant to be somewhere within the pages of the magazine known as 'The French Dispatch' and yes, this originally based Kansas publication is now situated in the city of Ennui-sur-Blase, (so Wes can pay homage to Tati). What we get is an obituary, a brief travel guide and three stories. The obituary is for the editor, (Bill Murray, one of the few performers in a massively starry cast to actually make an impression), and the stories are taken from various sections of the magazine.

The first one, about a painter, (Benicio Del Toro), incarcerated in an asylum for the criminally insane, is a visual treat and is 'narrated' by its author, (a sublime Tilda Swinton). The bits with Tilda are in colour, the rest in black and white but the tale itself is even more inconsequential than what we're used to from Anderson. It's followed by a piece by Frances McDormand based around student revolt and starring a dull and seemingly disinterested Timothee Chalamet. I wasn't quite sure how long this story lasted but I was seriously bored by the end.

The third, (and best), is the work of a James Baldwinesque writer, very nicely played by Jeffrey Wright and is both the most frivolous and the most complex of the three stories with Anderson making brilliant use of animation to bolster the visual effect. There are moments here worth the price of admission; indeed there are moments scattered through this most Andersonian of films as good as anything in his canon but ultimately this is a film to look at rather than listen to. It would make a great coffee-table book as the covers of 'The French Dispatch' which accompany the end credits clearly shows. As for the movie itself, it certainly scores an A for effort but for everything else I'm afraid it's only a C+ this time round.