Isle of Dogs

I’m not a fan of Wes Anderson movies. I mean I love the style and the songs and the acting of course but the plot always falls a little short. At one point or another in the movie everyone will start talking as if they’re reading the first sentence of a paragraph and hopping over the sentences in between to the next. Characters will act irrationally, in favor of the poetry of the scene instead of the story as a whole.

During those moments I’ve always dreamt that someone would jump in and ask Wes to be 10% less Wes because as fantastical and as unrealistic as the worlds can be, the dialogue and plot always need to be realistic and logical. It doesn’t matter if you’re Bill Murray or a very handsome fox.

But watching Isle of Dogs last night at the Alamo was the first time where I felt that the whole damn thing worked. All of the parts fit; the graphic design was outstanding, the music was lovely. But most importantly, the characters all had motivations and narrative arcs and jokes and everything I crave from a film.

It was simply wondrous.

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