The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 comedy-drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Wes Anderson. Ralph Fiennes leads a seventeen-actor ensemble cast as Monsieur Gustave H., famed concierge of a twentieth-century mountainside resort in the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka. When Gustave is framed for the murder of a wealthy dowager (Tilda Swinton), he and his recently befriended protégé Zero (Tony Revolori) embark on a quest for fortune and a priceless Renaissance painting amidst the backdrop of an encroaching fascist regime. Anderson's American Empirical Pictures produced the film in association with Studio Babelsberg, Fox Searchlight Pictures, and Indian Paintbrush's Scott Rudin and Steven Rales. Fox Searchlight supervised the commercial distribution, and The Grand Budapest Hotel's funding was sourced through Indian Paintbrush and German government-funded tax rebates.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson
- Wes Anderson
- Hugo Guinness
- Wes Anderson
- Scott Rudin
- Steven Rales
- Jeremy Dawson
Fox Searchlight Pictures
- February 6, 2014Berlinale) (
- March 6, 2014 (Germany)
- March 7, 2014 (United States)
100 minutes[2]
English
$25 million[3]
$174.6 million[3]
Anderson and longtime collaborator Hugo Guinness conceived The Grand Budapest Hotel as a fragmented tale following a character inspired by a common friend. They initially struggled in their brainstorming, but the experience touring Europe and researching the literature of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig shaped their vision for the film. The Grand Budapest Hotel draws visually from Europe-set mid-century Hollywood films and the United States Library of Congress's photochrom print collection of alpine resorts. Filming took place in eastern Germany from January to March 2013. French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the symphonic, Russian folk-inspired score, which expanded on his early work with Anderson. The film explores themes of fascism, nostalgia, friendship, and loyalty, and further studies analyze the function of color as an important storytelling device.
The Grand Budapest Hotel premiered in competition at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival on February 6, 2014. The French theatrical release on February 26 preceded the film's global rollout, followed by releases in Germany, North America, and the United Kingdom on March 6–7. The Grand Budapest Hotel drew highly positive reviews for its craftsmanship and acting, though occasional criticism centered on the film's approach to subject matter, fragmented storytelling, and characterization. It earned $174 million in box office revenue worldwide, Anderson's highest-grossing feature to date. The film was nominated for nine awards at the 87th Academy Awards including Best Picture, winning four, and received numerous other accolades. Since its release, The Grand Budapest Hotel has been assessed as one of the greatest films of the 21st century.[4][5][6]
Plot[edit]
In a cemetery in the former nation of Zubrowka,[a] a woman visits the shrine of a renowned writer, known simply as "Author", reading his most-cherished book: The Grand Budapest Hotel. The book, written in 1985, recounts the 1968 vacation of the young writer at the once-grand, then-drab hotel. There, he meets its owner, Zero Moustafa, who tells his rags to riches story at dinner.
In 1932, Zero is an illegal refugee escaping a war waged by a fascist regime, which killed his entire family. He is hired as a lobby boy supervised by Monsieur Gustave H., the hotel's concierge. Gustave strikes up affairs with old, wealthy clients, including dowager Madame Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe-und-Taxis (known as Madame D.), who secretly owns the hotel. She mysteriously dies a month after her last hotel visit so Gustave and Zero visit her estate, where relatives come for the reading of her will. There, her attorney, Deputy Vilmos Kovacs, announces a recent codicil which bequeaths the famous Renaissance painting Boy with Apple to Gustave. Madame D.'s son and an agent of the regime, Dmitri, refuses to let it happen. Gustave and Zero abscond with the painting, hiding it in a safe in the Grand Budapest.
After a testimony by Madame D.'s butler Serge X, Gustave is arrested by Inspector Alfred J. Henckels for Madame D.'s murder; Serge then goes into hiding. Gustave befriends a gang during his imprisonment and provides them with pastries from Mendl's, a well-known bakery. After extensive research of the prison, one of Gustave's cellmates, Ludwig, tells the gang that they can escape via a storm-drain sewage system. Convinced to join the prison break, Gustave has Zero place hammers, chisels, and sawblades inside pastries made by Agatha, an apprentice of Herr Mendl and Zero's fiancée. The guard responsible for checking contraband cannot bring himself to break open the pastries since Mendl's pastries are works of art. During the prison break, the group of convicts runs into guards who secretly gamble at night, and convict Gunther is forced to sacrifice himself to dispatch the guards. The rest of the group manages to escape and disperse. Meanwhile, Dmitri sends his hitman, J. G. Jopling, to kill Kovacs after questioning his loyalty, as well as Serge's sister for hiding his whereabouts.
When Zero and Gustave are reunited, they set out to prove Gustave's innocence with the assistance of a fraternity of concierges known as the Society of the Crossed Keys, which locates Serge and facilitates a meeting between him, Gustave and Zero. Serge reveals that he was pressured to implicate Gustave by the real killer, Dmitri, and that Madame D. had a missing second will, which would only take effect should she be murdered. Jopling arrives and kills Serge, leaving Gustave and Zero without a witness, then tries to flee. After a chase through the snow, Gustave is left dangling off a cliff at the mercy of Jopling. Before it is too late, Zero rescues Gustave by pushing Jopling off the cliff, and the two men continue their escape from swarming Zubrowkan troops led by Henckels.
Gustave, Zero, and Agatha return to the Grand Budapest to find it converted into a fascist headquarters by Dmitri. Agatha sneaks in to retrieve the painting but is spotted by Dmitri. Gustave and Zero rush in to save Agatha, but Dmitri shoots at them and initiates a melee with Zubrowkan troops, which Henckels stops. At the back of the painting, Agatha finds Madame D.'s second will, which makes Gustave the hotel owner. He is exonerated in court, while Dmitri becomes the main suspect and flees the country. Over time, Gustave becomes one of the wealthiest Zubrowkans, and Zero and Agatha are wed. However, while the three are later traveling by train, soldiers come by and destroy Zero's refugee documents; Gustave tries to fend them off but is killed. His own will bequeaths the hotel and his fortune to Zero. He maintains the Grand Budapest up to its eventual decline in memory of Agatha who, like their infant son, died from Prussian Grippe.[9]
Other cast members included Larry Pine as Mr. Mosher, Milton Welsh as Franz Müller, Giselda Volodi as Serge's sister, Wolfram Nielacny as Herr Becker, Florian Lukas as Pinky, Karl Markovics as Wolf, Volker Michalowski as Günther, Neal Huff as Lieutenant, Bob Balaban as M. Martin, Fisher Stevens as M. Robin, Wallace Wolodarsky as M. Georges, Waris Ahluwalia as M. Dino, Jella Niemann as the young woman, and Lucas Hedges as a pump attendant.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Grand Budapest Hotel was considered a surprise box office success.[120] The film's performance plateaued in North America after a strong start, but finished the theatrical run as Anderson's highest-grossing film in the region.[121][122] It performed strongest in key European and Asian markets.[121][123] Germany was the most lucrative market, and the film's link to that country boosted the box office performance.[123] South Korea, Australia, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom represented some of the film's largest takings.[123] The Grand Budapest Hotel earned $59.3 million (34.3 percent of its earnings) in the United States and Canada and $113.7 million (65.7 percent) overseas, for a worldwide total of $173 million,[3] making it the 46th-highest-grossing film of 2014,[124] and Anderson's highest-grossing film to date.[125]
The film posted $2.8 million from 172 theaters during its opening week in France, trailing Supercondriaque and Non-Stop. In Paris, The Grand Budapest Hotel screenings were the weekend's biggest numbers.[113] The film's $16,220 per-theater average was the best opening for any Anderson-directed project in France to date.[108] In its second week the number of theaters grew to 192, and The Grand Budapest Hotel grossed another $1.64 million at the French box office.[126] Earnings dropped by just 30 percent the following weekend, for a total gross of $1.1 million.[127] By March 24, the box office posted a five percent increase, and The Grand Budapest Hotel's French release had taken $8.2 million overall.[128]
The week of March 6 saw The Grand Budapest Hotel take $6.2 million from 727 theaters internationally, yielding the most robust figures in Belgium ($156,000, from 12 theaters), Austria ($162,000, from 29 theaters), Germany ($1.138 million, from 163 theaters), and the United Kingdom (top-three debut, with £1.53 million or $1.85 million from 284 theaters).[126][129] It increased 11 percent in Germany the following weekend to $1.1 million,[127] and The Grand Budapest Hotel yielded $5.2 million from German cinemas by the week of March 31.[130] It sustained the box office momentum into the second week of UK general release with improved sales from an expanded theater presence, and by the third week, the film topped the national top ten with £1.27 million ($1.55 million) from 458 screens, buoyed by positive reviews in the media.[129] After a month it had earned $13.2 million in the UK.[130] The Grand Budapest Hotel's expansion to other overseas markets continued toward the end of March, marked by significant releases in Sweden (first place, with $498,108), Spain (third, with $1 million), and South Korea (the country's biggest specialty film opening ever, with $622,109 from 162 cinemas).[128] During its second week of release in South Korea, the film's box office ballooned by 70 percent to $996,000.[130] On its opening week elsewhere, The Grand Budapest Hotel earned $1.8 million in Australia, $382,000 in Brazil, and $1 million in Italy.[131][132] By May 27, the film's international gross exceeded $100 million.[133]
In the United States, The Grand Budapest Hotel opened to a $202,792-per theater average from a four-theater $811,166 overall gross, breaking the record for most robust live-action limited release previously held by Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012).[134][135] The return, exceeding Fox's expectations for the weekend, was the best US opening for an Anderson-directed project to date.[134] The Grand Budapest Hotel also eclipsed Moonrise Kingdom's $130,749 per-theater average, hitherto Anderson's highest-opening limited release.[134] Fading interest in films hoping to capitalize on Academy Awards prestige and its crossover appeal to younger, casual moviegoers were crucial to The Grand Budapest Hotel's early box office success.[134] The film sustained the box office momentum as large suburban cineplexes were added to its limited run, racking $3.6 million the second week and $6.7 million the following weekend.[136][137] The film officially entered wide release the week of March 30 by screening in 977 theaters across North America.[138] New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, and Montreal were The Grand Budapest Hotel's most successful North American cities.[139] Its theater count peaked at 1,467 in mid-April before a gradual decline.[140] By the end of the month, the film's domestic gross topped $50 million.[141] The Grand Budapest Hotel ended its North American run on February 26, 2015.[142]