"Wes Anderson's Dirty Dishwater"

Two years ago, Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” opened to critical acclaim and strong returns at the box office. The film brought Anderson’s ebullient and idiosyncratic style to his widest audience yet and cemented his status among the most celebrated directors of his generation.

Earlier this week, “Come Together,” a holiday-themed short film directed by Anderson, produced in collaboration with H&M, was released on the fast-fashion retailer’s YouTube channel. “Come Together” is a trite and derivative production in which Mr. Anderson plagiarizes himself in a misguided attempt to brew cinematic tea from his own dirty dishwater.

The film is set on an intercity train marooned hundreds of miles from its destination due to inclement weather and mechanical difficulties. Academy Award winner Adrien Brody stars in the short as “Conductor Ralph,” the train’s apologetic steward who invites the passengers to join him for a small, complimentary brunch in the dining car.

“Come Together” is hardly the first collaboration between an acclaimed film director and a commercial client. David Lynch, Sofia Coppola, and Spike Jonze have each directed comparable ventures. Advertisers recognize the need to attract coveted younger demographics with notable, often extravagant content—preferably with big names attached. Videos like “Come Together” are expected to go viral, to generate their own momentum, to find their way onto screens without being put there. I call it the Trojan Horse approach. It’s a risky bet that doesn’t always pay off, but given the shift away from print and television advertising, it’s one that companies are increasingly willing to take.

In some instances, a partnership between artist and advertiser can be fruitful. Consider the Spike Jonze directed “KENZO World” campaign released on YouTube this August. The video, which has accumulated nearly 5 million views, stars Margaret Qualley and features an original score performed by Sam Siegel.  

At a moment in which there is very little middle ground between micro-budget indies and hundred million dollar blockbusters, Kenzo’s patronage reminds viewers (and studios) what an independent filmmaker can achieve on a slightly more generous budget. Kudos to Kenzo for lavishing an original score and stunning visual effects on just a few minutes of footage. The video can’t have been cheap, but it is entertaining and Kenzo earned the right to slap their logo onto the opening and closing credits. 

Which leads me back to why I’m so disappointed in “Come Together.” The film has more cinematic firepower than any of the aforementioned projects: a five-time Oscar nominee director, and one of Hollywood’s most respected leading men in the starring role—and yet it’s as stale as week-old baguette.

Unless you’re a Buster Keaton or Hitchcock fan, you probably haven’t seen a film set on a train since Mr. Anderson’s 2007 effort, The Darjeeling Limited. It isn’t clear why he chose to revisit the theme in “Come Together,” but the set resembles that of The Darjeeling Limited so closely, one wonders if they simply pulled it out of storage, painted it spearmint green, and began shooting. This is a missed opportunity. A simple change of scenery would have breathed much-need life into the project. I would love to have seen Mr. Anderson’s gleefully ramshackle aesthetic applied to an airport lobby, rustic ski lodge, or Florida Keys beach house.

“Conductor Ralph,” the character played by Mr. Brody, feels similarly repurposed, as if he were given a handful of lines from an early draft of the Grand Budapest Hotel screenplay. Conductor Ralph is a two-bit version of Gustave H., the resplendent concierge of The Grand Budapest Hotel (played by Ralph Fiennes). Anderson mimics his own quixotic dialogue by relying heavily on lists and specific numbers—for instance the train is delayed, “an additional eleven and a half  hours,” and the estimated arrival time “is three seventeen AM.” These cutesy, irritating, and unnecessary details lend credence to the criticism that Anderson relies on quirkiness and visual technique to mask the absence of dramatic substance in his films.

In most cases, I wholeheartedly refute this criticism. I like Wes Anderson’s movies. At his best, Wes Anderson is to his audience what Gustave H. is to the guests of the Grand Budapest Hotel—an indispensible personage who vivifies his environment with warmth and charm. Zero, Gustave’s young assistant, remarks that many of the Grand Budapest Hotel’s patrons are only there to see Gustave. Wes Anderson’s movies work the same way, without his unifying presence, they would simply be a collection of elaborate backgrounds and fanciful details.  

“Come Together” feels like what it is: a cheap, knock-off version of Wes Anderson (how fitting that the film was produced by H&M). My only question is: why make this compromise now?