The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Wes Anderson
    Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham,
    Jude Law, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe,
    Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Tilda Swinton,
    Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Harvey Keitel,
    Mathieu Amalric, Léa Seydoux, Tom Wilkinson,
    Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bob Balaban
This crackpot, picture-postcard, storybook movie takes place in a quaint, mountainous province in Eastern Europe called Zubrowka. That Zubrowka doesn't exist, has never existed, except as the name of some Polish vodka, is beside the point, or maybe it is the point, whatever. Figuring into the story (in no particular order) are a dead matriarch, a contested will, a priceless painting, a wall safe, a set of brass knuckles, several tiny cakes, a fake mustache, a birthmark in the shape of Mexico, a prison break, war, border guards, guns, romantic poetry, a plate of mush, four severed fingers, a dead cat, perfume, trains, monks' robes, cable cars, a pair of skis, a sled, flirting, true love, fingernail polish, a young man's curiosity, an old man's memory, and the fabled establishment of the title, a once grand luxury hotel. I don't know how else to describe it, really. Wes Anderson wrote and directed the thing, and it's his best movie yet, a movie nobody else could dream up, let alone pull off. There's not a single wrong note, even in the yodeling.