The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

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I am not familliar with any previous works or repuation of the creators whatsover, I just watched this short movie out of curiosity since it was on Netflix. So this seemed to be a sort of first person narrative where the characters speak the story themselves? Think of it when a person reads a book out loud at home, but in this case they are reading to us the viewers. The story of this piece focused on various qualities of generosity and depthful feelings. It was interesting to see the characters describe their feelings while not showing any type of emotions. Due to the nature of this film, I wasn't sure what to think, the concept is good but I found it perplexing. My only issue is the pacing, I am unsure if this was on purpose or not. This flim piece moved way too fast, to where even I had trouble keeping up or understanding what was going on. Perhaps this is how the film was designed to be or I needed a deeper level of understanding?

Even at 40 minutes length this short movie still managed to annoy me with this Wes Anderson's new gimmick of actors speedreading lines. Why? THIS is NOT a theatreplay. THIS is NOT a book you read out aloud. THIS was / is meant to be a "movie" and it failed at that, because of this absurb robotic speedreading gimmick. Doestn matter that the sets do look creative and really beautiful, it doesnt even matter that the VERY BEST of the current actors are starring in this picture, this GIMMICK style of robotic speedreading is nervewrecking to watch. Wes Anderson USED TO make movies with real characters, who were really quirky, but still humanlike nonetheless. NOW Wes Anderson (unfortunately) has become a victim of his own style, which is nothing less, nothing more than a TIRING GIMMICK. Please write a book Mr Anderson. Or make a theatre play for petes sake. Those forms would fit your style of speedreading words, BUT IF you (try) to make a movie, PLEASE LET THE CHARACTERS BE REAL AND NOT BABBLING SPEEDREADING IDIOTS. Another failed Wes Anderson flick (second in a row). Such a pity, because I really adored his earlier movies.

Yikes, I get that Wes has an affection or addiction to the old 4:3 TV ratio, but jeez After at least 3 of his last films using it cut in with 16:9, I cannot take a whole film like that. It's such a waste of space and lazy filmmaking. A director has zero vision when they fill the screen with an actor's face, usually found in TV, but also film. Wes has his frame filled up with nice colors and settings, so why not fill the entire screen with it, and not a square in the middle? I also thought "Asteroid City" was his weakest up until this release. I t was flat and had only some moments and cool visuals - but was not a solid piece. Saying this to illustrate his unfortunate decline :(

As much as this is pure Uncut 1100% pure white as the driven snow Wes Anderson, including one of his most thrilling tracking shots and rear-screen projection that made me laugh hard enough for the neighbors to sit up and probably want to check it out for themselves, it is also a perfect distillation of Roald Dahl's perfectly eccentric and wildly over-elaborate storytelling and construction of one plot into another. Maybe you haven't read Dahl in a while if you were one of those kids who read him a lot (I know he has a reputation today, but he could objectively write comedy and quirk like nobody's business), but even if that's so the recognition of his voice will come back to you like a long dormant dream. It's also fascinating to see the clockwork-theatrical staging from Asteroid City taken even further. I'd ask him why he doesn't direct theater, but then he would look at me like I was a fool - why do that when he has the overwhelming power of control of the Frame of Cinema at his disposal? The thing about this Henry Sugar film that I like on top of the perfectly calibrated balancing act between very human comedy and quixotic and deadpan fantasy that we know Anderson can do in his sleep (though I imagine as easy as it looks it takes a lot of concentration to get right with DP Yeoman), the performances are just right and add to the flavor of the piece. Call it shallow, but I just enjoy how soothing the voices of Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Kingsley and even to an extent Fiennes are, like they could almost be ASMR-ing you with the Dahl words that get spun like a marathon sprinter who is running in this precision that dazzles you because it almost is inexplicable (just like, I might posit for comparison, what the men can see with their eyes closed after concentrating hard for days and years on end). Last but not least: Benedict Cumberbatch in a dress = most unlikely kind of attractive walking cartoon in a dress since Bugs Bunny.

Anderson needs to stay away from the delightful works of Dahl and stop turning them into artistic, hipster rubbish. We found this highly unpleasant to watch, despite the talented actors that were hired to play the characters (or should I say speed narrators). The story is not brought to life on screen; it is just read to you by the actors in a very blunt, matter of fact way, in front of visually appealing backgrounds. Highly disappointed, as I was looking forward to watching this film and love the works of Roald Dahl. Perhaps Anderson should write an original script in future if he wants to trial this kind of film.

"Whimsical" and "fantastical" are often used to describe the magical fiction of Welsh author Roald Dahl, whose stories, ostensibly for children, have an undercurrent of adult sentiment, mischief, and acerbic wit. His match has been met in recent years in American auteur Wes Anderson, and lately this year in his confectionery, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," a short, 40 minutes derived from Dahl's short story collection of the same name. Yes, it is by definition "a short," yet inexplicably longer than it ought to be. Anderson's remarkable film career has been on the radar of admirers since "Bottle Rocket" in 1996, his directorial debut at twenty-seven, followed by "Rushmore" in 1998. With Jerry-built plots of comedy and gloom, mistaking character development for quirky and loopy, and endings that deflate like party balloons, their singular style has wormed its way ad nauseam into the collective unconscious of the current wave of filmmakers and writers, the results of which can be sampled on Netflix, ad nauseam. The word often attributed to Anderson is "postmodern," a catch all for anything that defies explanation in words of one syllable. No one can fault him for this, as he is, without question, an interesting artist who inspires debate, revulsion, and love. This "short" is a case in point. Unlikely to ever become a perennial favorite, like "Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang," it is at least not longer than 40 minutes because any longer would have been sensory overload. Typical now of Anderson's eccentric visual style, the film is, in effect, a colorful, three-dimensional, pop-up book, although oddly flat, despite forced perspectives, yet by laterally moving the camera, to cut from one scene to the next, as if flipping the pages of a book, there is a fluidity, too, like the sweeping camera moves in a Max Ophuls' film. But, not quite. Nothing in an Anderson film is like anything previously seen. Conceptually, it's not even a film. In fact, by having actors directly address the audience, disclosing the fictive world, using perfunctory, mechanical line readings to alienate them further from any character identification, his work is, perhaps intentionally, an endorsement of one of Dahl's "revolting rules": "Films are fun...but books are better!"