The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson, 2023)

[DarkImbecile]

According to this Daily Mail reporter, it’s another Ronald Dahl adaptation:

[domino harvey]

Wow, reading the plot summary for that on Wikipedia and it 100% sounds like a Wes Anderson movie

[knives]

It also makes me realize I would love for Anderson to do an adaptation of Kafka’s Amerika or maybe one of his shorts in that vein.

[flyonthewall2983]

Big news here is he’s working with Netflix. Since he made all but one movie for Fox since Darjeeling I wonder if he’s had any reservations essentially working with Disney again after Life Aquatic was basically a fiasco for them.

[domino harvey]

Apparently Netflix owns all the Dahl rights, so he had no choice

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Big news here is he’s working with Netflix. Since he made all but one movie for Fox since Darjeeling I wonder if he’s had any reservations essentially working with Disney again after Life Aquatic was basically a fiasco for them.

Searchlight acquired The French Dispatch almost two years after the sale to Disney was announced, so I don't think this is an issue. As Domino said there's extenuating circumstances with Dahl material that necessitates going with Netflix, but if Asteroid City ends up at Searchlight that'll give us a more definitive answer. If it goes to someone else it would probably be more down to recent changes at Searchlight than how The Life Aquatic fared under a completely different corporate regime nearly two decades ago.

[The Narrator Returns]

Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes have joined the cast.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

It's also supposedly an adaptation of three short stories (the book contains six in addition to the eponymous one). Curious if they'll be more or less standalone or if there'll be some sort of overarching framing story as with The French Dispatch—the article cites The Ballad of Buster Scruggs which implies the former, but it's pretty vague and unofficial.

[yoloswegmaster]

At least we can expect a Criterion release right away for this since we won't be getting a studio release first.

[captveg]

Wow. I've always enjoyed the oddity of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and Anderson is the perfect match for it. Hopefully of the other short stories in that collection one of the two he'll incorporate is The Hitch-Hiker.

[Never Cursed]

This runs a mere 37 minutes, or, congratulations to Wes Anderson for winning the Best Live Action Short Oscar

[Ribs]

Nope, IndieWire just didn’t ask the right questions. Wes clarified in his Daily Beast interview that Henry Sugsr itself runs 37 minutes but the rest will be a little shorter. He still says its not a film though, but to me it seems like they’re submitting it for the short Oscar even though it basically fits into a 90 minute structure some of us may call a film.

[EWMMTFAN]

Wes Anderson delivering a short length feature to Netflix is hilarious. The executives were hoping for a feature from a creative filmmaker and what they got was a short length feature equal to a episode of some disposable TV show on there. Thanks to Wes for realizing feature length storytelling belongs on the big screen, at a multiplex near you.

[therewillbeblus]

Nope, read the post directly above yours. It sounds like Netflix is the one deciding to break it up into four episodes on their platform, and the longest segment is the 37-minute titular one. The book contains other shorter stories that he’s adapting as well. This will be like The French Dispatch’s structure but Wes is not the one deciding to release it as four shorts.

[captveg]

I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix has the option to watch them as individual shorts or as a singular anthology film.

[domino harvey]

[captveg]

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar short film (39 minute runtime) premieres at Venice this Friday 9/1 and then is released on Netflix 9/27.

Poster

SpoilerShow

[Ribs]

The four shorts will be released over the course of a week, as reported on Netflix's blog Tudum. After the main short (39m), the remainder are 17m each, reaching a total of 96m. Anderson clearly refers to the entire project as being a film multiple times in that interview, so I think it's fairly transparent this weird release strategy is entirely designed when they realized it would be helpful to be considered a short for awards. Hopefully, the brief, cursory Netflix theatrical release that is announced as beginning September 20 will be presented as originally intended with all four shorts shown.

[captveg]

Fiennes playing Dahl and the policeman in Henry Sugar. That's perfect.

[captveg]

Trailer

[domino harvey]

Rated PG for smoking, my word

[captveg]

Rated PG for smoking, my word

Out of curiosity I looked up the other shorts as well.

Poison: "Rated PG for peril, language, thematic elements and brief smoking."

The Ratcatcher: "Rated PG for thematic elements, brief language and smoking."

The Swan: "Rated PG for thematic elements and violent material."

Guess Henry Sugar wasn't thematic enough, unlike the others.

[Matt]

Has nobody watched this yet? I enjoyed it, but think I will enjoy it more on repeat viewings. It’s visually and verbally very dense, a lot coming at the viewer at a very high clip. The style is a mix of his usual presentational live-action style combined with elements of his animated films (such as miniatures, painted backdrops, obvious rear projections).

Cumberbatch, Aoyade, and Kingsley are all perfect fits for the flat, laconic acting style used here. I’m not so sure about Dev Patel, though he’s not in any way bad. It is very fun to see the actors in their main roles as well as the smaller roles.

It has the feel of something Max Fischer might have put on at his small liberal arts college (or prison, wherever he ended up after graduating Grover Cleveland High School).

[therewillbeblus]

I thought Patel fared second-best after Kingsley, at least in terms of successful deadpan joke-delivery. I really enjoyed the main feature. Anderson's aesthetic choices in the adaptation process were inspired, with most laughs coming from the quirks of meshing a primarily literary narrative application into the artifice of his cinematic form. It was more 'fun' than when he wove this stylistic self-consciousness into Asteroid City earlier this year, though a different kind of clever. Familiar crutches are employed, but they feel more creative and work at a greater ratio than, say, The Last Dispatch. The other shorts coming out have yielded diminished returns so far. The Swan was rather potent, and I look forward to hearing defenses singling out Friend's subtle vulnerability and the stark darkness of how Anderson executes the ending, but I ultimately walked away respecting more than enjoying it. The Rat Catcher was okay - not a bad way to spend 15 minutes, but nothing special either. Its best contribution is also its most frustrating: Fiennes is finally afforded a chance to escape from roles of high-mannered mild-eccentrics within Anderson's canon, transforming into a blithe ratman, and it's remarkably underwhelming.

[swo17]

I'll watch it when it's all out.

How alarmed should we be that Criterion is now four Wes Anderson features behind?