What's better than one new Wes Anderson film? Four new Wes Anderson films, and you shall have them. The visionary director has adapted four lesser-known Roald Dahl tales into shorts for Netflix.
The four shorts also all feature mostly the same primary actors including Benedict Cumberbatch, Sir Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade. With rave reviews for the flagship film in the collection, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and three excellent offbeat shorts that are well worth a watch.
Whether you plan to watch them one at a time or all in a row to form a feature-length anthology, here's the lowdown on each story.
1. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
- Release date: 27th September
The first and longest short of the collection. This 39-minute film sees Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, a struggling gambler who arrests a slump by learning a mysterious technique from "The man who sees without using his eyes".
Interestingly many believe that Dahl wrote this story as a satirical swipe at critics who moaned that his works never had a happy ending, so expect something sugary sweet. It (and all the other films in the collection) is presented almost as a monologue to camera, with sets being visibly constructed and deconstructed around characters as they talk.
2. The Swan
- Release date: 28th September
Another Dahl story featured in his short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, this is a brisk 17 minute story of a genius young boy being ruthlessly bullied. It features the tensest scene of the collection.
As well as Ralph Fiennes, this story also stars Rupert Friend and young Asa Jennings as lead character Peter. I won't spoil too much but the short story at least is a touch darker than Henry Sugar's tale. Perhaps those critics had a point Roald?
3. The Rat Catcher
- Release date: 29th September
This wasn't actually in the Henry Sugar collection, but 1954's Someone Like You so clearly Anderson has specifically chosen it and has something special in mind. As you might expect it centers around a professional rat exterminator and some talking rodents.
Ralph Fiennes put in some fine work as the creepy title character but I would still argue this is perhaps the most 'out-there' of the movies in this collection.
4. Poison
- Release date: 30th September
Poison has been adapted before when Alfred Hitchcock did his own TV version of this story in 1958, so there are big boots to fill.
This is a very simple story of a man in India who wakes to find a poisonous snake in his bed, and features Cumberbatch (in his pyjamas), Fiennes, Kingsley and Dev Patel- with Fiennes playing the author himself. Of the three shorter films, this might be the best, with Patel in particular giving a very strong performance.
