The French Dispatch 2021
Anderson's first anthology feature, structured like an issue of The New Yorker. Bill Murray plays magazine editor Arthur Howitzer Jr., a Harold Ross-esque figure holding together four stories: Owen Wilson's bicycling reporter piece up top, "The Concrete Masterpiece" (Benicio del Toro as an imprisoned artist managed by his guard and lover, played by Léa Seydoux, Sean's favorite of the three), "Revisions to a Manifesto" (Frances McDormand and Timothée Chalamet amid the 1968 Paris student protests, Amanda's favorite), and "The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner" (Jeffrey Wright as a James Baldwin-esque writer narrating a kidnapping story through a talk-show frame, Chris's favorite, and the one he found closest to the Richie Tenenbaum pathos he wants more of from Anderson). All three think any of the three could've carried its own feature; the framing device around Murray's magazine was, for Amanda, the least involving part.
