God, I love
Isle of Dogs! (no surprise as I love Wes Anderson, and dogs). I need to see it again to let it sink in, but safe to say overall I thought it was fantastic. Mid-tier Anderson, which is excellent. (not Budapest Hotel or Fantastic Fox perfection, better than Darjeeling and Moonrise Kingdom (my opinion y'all)).
David wrote:
Greta Gerwig's Tracy is a rare example of a misjudged Wes Anderson character; she feels uncomfortably shoehorned in.
At first I had some similar thoughts,
'why does there have to be an American female hero in this?' but the character grew on me a lot. My friend who I saw this with, female, had just spent a week in Japan, and thought it entirely appropriate that the rabble-rouser was American -- "Japanese women wouldn't rebel like that," obviously an over-simplification but not inappropriate in its illustration of cultural values. I enjoyed her scene in the bar with the scientist, and by the end was rooting for the freckled firebrand (or was that acne?).
The movie evoked in me a kind of melancholy awe, a warmth and gentle outrage, serenity and tempered glee. And encouraged me to appreciate even more the dogs in my life.
A