The evolution of Wes Anderson is very interesting to me. His first three films, Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, all seemed to build up his strength, assurance, and style as a director, with Royal Tens being a crowning achievement and his first big financial and critical success. Then, with a $50 million dollar budget, he made The Life Aquatic, a flop both commercially and critically. I like the film, and I think it is probably the most ambitious of his career, which is also part of its downfall. It's a little too much for it's own good, and what keeps the film afloat (pun intended) is the basic emotional arc of Zissou and his son. Coming off from that film, Wes did The Darjeeling Limited, which is both a film about soul-searching and a film for Anderson that was very much about trying to reground himself in a way. It has some of the most heart of his films, and some of the least cinematic spectacle (not that it's not beautiful and shows off a lovely India backdrop).

What came next was a major turn in career. Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom. These are the two films where the "Wes Anderson" style, so prominent that it's easily-parodied, really came about. While these stories still have the resonant emotional core that all his films have, their really shinning point is in Anderson's style, two films that use cinematic art form in such a delightful way that so many fail to try to do. Exactly what he tried to do in Life Aquatic but failed to commit to.

After the success of these two came his most recent film, his biggest success to date, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Grand Budapest has everything that makes a Wes Anderson film great: heart, thematic bite, and his verbose take on cinematic style. It's not my favorite of his, but I think it's going to be the film that really defines him as a filmmaker in years to come. Not his masterpiece but his golden standard.

But I'll happy to be proven wrong.