Top 3 Wes Anderson Films

Wes Anderson is a beloved film director, as he has a very notable technique that is in all his movies. No character is written the same, and there are no repeats in characteristics or traits across all his films. The broader message in Anderson's work is that with the absence of subjectivity there would be a bland society. His movies consist of similar actors who were recycled from former movies as well as newcomers to the Anderson society. Some movies contain the same vibrant lens, some films with a rich color palette, and others look color washed. Anderson’s witty and dark sense of humor gently guides the viewer through the film, as the screenplay is mostly awkward in all of his films. After the early 2000s, there is a trend in Anderson’s films in which he splits up scenes into chapters. Treating a film like a work of literature excites the bookworm in all of us. 

The Royal Tenenbaums is by far Wes Anderson's best work for it is equally filled with quirks, as well as a serious tone. The story starts at the origin of the Tenenbaum family, with three siblings growing up together. Royal and Etheline Tenenbaum’s children are prodigies, with a lot of potential. Chaz is a businessman, Margot is an adopted free soul, and Richie is a tennis player. Early on in the film Etheline and Royal split up, and Royal becomes an absent figure. The film then moves to the present time, and the three siblings are grown with their own separate lives away from their dysfunctional family. Their father, Royal Tenenbaum, announces that he is dying and has a short amount of time to live, thus bringing the family together again back to the old house in New York. They come together to see him before he passes; and shortly thereafter, they find out he is lying about his death. Though this film is one of the favorites of Wes Anderson’s work, it is also problematic: Richie is madly in love with Margot, making it incestual. Anderson also touches on mental struggles in this film, yet he does so using  light-hearted, extraordinary characters and the wonders of a flawed family. The movie ends in a satisfying way, as a once separated family unites through the matters of death and burn out.  

Wes Anderson’s most attention grabbing movie appears to be The French Dispatch. This is a film for one with a short attention span, as the story switches through multiple situations occurring simultaneously. The story follows through the publication of a monthly newsletter, The French Dispatch. Conflicts follow with facing life in prison, cliques, kidnapping, tragic destruction and love stories. It takes the full hour and forty-eight minutes to realize that Wes Anderson’s approach was to teach how the medians of art and literature are severely subjective. Another unique aspect of the film is the constant switch from black and white to colored shots, so the entire film feeds the appeal of the human eye. As the viewer follows through the chaos of events, there is not a single moment that they will fall victim to boredom. 

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou follows a famous diving pioneer as he embarks on an important mission, for this film is one of Wes Anderson’s underrated works. Steve Zissou’s journey is to figure out who he is to the public eye and what he must do to mend broken relationships with foes and friends of the past. He is a lost oceanographer who is stubborn and lacking empathy.  This film is not a true story, but it is loosely based on and dedicated to Jacques Cousteau. Just like any other Wes Anderson film, the scenes are set up in different chapters, yet the movie follows through as a documentary of Steve Zissou’s aquatic discoveries. Zissou brings together his crew of oceanographers to avenge his long lost partner who was eaten by a shark. The crew runs into pirates and all kinds of trouble as they seek out the rare shark. But they end up uniting again, and Zissou then finds a purpose to his career. This film is great for anyone interested in a movie with quirks and purposefully bad acting that reflects the true comedy that makes up Anderson’s unique sense of humor.