'The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar' is the most notable and considerably most impressive selection of the 4 short films recently released to Netflix by Wes Anderson.
Anderson himself has a history with writing and directing pictures that are generally-speaking noted as being short films (usually 90 minutes long), but working with productions as short as his most recent 4 projects is something very new to him.
If you are wondering if you have heard of the name 'Henry Sugar' before, that very well may be the case as the short film is no original story and is in fact based on a book wrote by none other than Roald Dahl.
Whilst on that point, all four of Anderson's recent short films are based on stories written by the iconic children's author.
'The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar' is based on a man who goes by the name 'Henry Sugar' who, despite his incredible wealth, has an intense relationship with gambling to the point where it's could be described more as an addiction than a relationship.
Benedict Cumberbatch does a solid job of portraying the protagonist in this story. The British actor is joined by familiar faces such as Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade and Ralph Fiennes who performs as Roald Dahl himself.
If you are experienced in the unique and creative world of Wes Anderson, you will be no stranger to the fact that most of the characters the filmmaker writes for could be described as manufactured, and to be more to the point: emotionless.
This is very much the case in the film.
A lot of dialogue tends to be through the form of narration, from the perspective of the characters who are talking. It's very rare for other characters to converse with each other, and most of the time the only people they're talking to is the audience.
This technique is not only shows bravery from Wes Anderson, but also a level of creativity and unique quality from the filmmaker. The entire film is written as though it is taken straight from the book itself.
Therefore if you were unaware that the story was based on a popular children's book beforehand, you are destined to find out by the end of it.
Although we have become comfortable with strange and unique traits such as this in previous Wes Anderson projects before, we have never actually seen something as different as this. Certainly not utilised for this purpose.
Inevitably it felt like a breath of fresh air and something very different which we tend to need nowadays in modern-day cinema.
The story of Henry Sugar, whilst it is wonderful, isn't too much to ride home about.
The purpose behind Wes Anderson's intentions of making these 4 short films don't seem to be because of the unique qualities and mountain-moving storylines.
It comes across a lot more as though Anderson is saying to the audience: "Look how good I am at making movies".
Which he should, because he is. The director uses a number of unique techniques to display various factors in the film such as setting changes, exchanges in dialogue, wardrobe changes etc.
And although it isn't the greatest piece of filmmaking of all time, it is really interesting and cool to see the different ways in which Anderson shot the movie.
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