Sightlines · reception

How The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun was received

2021 · Wes Anderson · The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun on Sightlines

The arc

It premiered at Cannes in 2021 after a full year of COVID delay and instantly split critics — 'the most Wes Anderson movie ever made' was meant as both praise and complaint. It's since been quietly reappraised, with the density that exhausted reviewers in 2021 now read by fans as the whole point.

What’s debated

The eternal fight: is this Anderson at his richest or the moment the style tipped into self-parody — plus the sub-debate of ranking the three stories, which the Benicio del Toro segment usually wins.

Its footprint

As Anderson's open love letter to The New Yorker, it became the touchstone for every 'if Wes Anderson directed your life' parody that followed, and a fixture of journalism-nostalgia discourse — half the fun online is matching its writers to the real New Yorker legends (Baldwin, Mavis Gallant, A.J. Liebling) they're modeled on.

Where it stands

A mid-table entry in the endless 'ranking Wes Anderson' lists on Letterboxd, but with a loud contingent insisting it's his most underrated.

Did you know? The film came with real merch for print nerds: Anderson helped assemble 'An Editor's Burial,' a published anthology of the actual New Yorker pieces that inspired it, while Jarvis Cocker released a full tie-in album of French pop covers, 'Chansons d'Ennui Tip-Top,' in character as the film's lounge singer.

Named by the director

  • La Chinoise (1967) — Anderson's officially released influence list names Godard's student-radical film as a touchstone for the revolution chapter.
  • Mon Oncle (1958) — Tati's comedy appears on Anderson's published list of films that inspired the production's look and comic staging.
  • Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) — Jacques Becker's gangster picture is among the French crime films on Anderson's declared inspiration list.
  • Jean-Luc Godard — Anderson repeatedly pointed to Godard and the New Wave as the wellspring for the film's vision of 60s France.
  • Jacques Tati — Anderson cited Tati's meticulous comic universe while building the fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blasé.

A Deleuzian reading of The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun →