As Wes Anderson moved further and further beyond that which we humans understand to be reality, it’s remarkable that The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar exhibits those familiar off-putting traits while being one of his most complete and approachable works. I didn’t sit back and scratch my head wondering what it all means… it makes sense. It’s direct. It’s weird. But it’s enjoyable and relatable without feeling like you have to turn on your great big film brain.
Henry Sugar is a short film on Netflix based on a short story by Roald Dahl as recited and minimally performed by the cast. It seems inspired somewhat by Asteroid City in that the sets and structure are artificial, kind of like a stage play with movable walls and sets. And it works.
Henry Sugar is idly rich when he reads a book about a man who can see without eyes… which gives him his own ideas. That’s a quick synopsis of a short film that’s “only” forty minutes long… but make no mistake, the flick is so rapid fire, it might as well be ninety.
The gimmick of this particular Anderson joint is that the cast members are reciting the text of the story, including pauses to say “I said” or “He said”. And it’s absolutely mesmerizing in its speed and volume of content. It might be the perfect distillation of whatever is knocking about in Wes Anderson’s head.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Richard Ayoade, and Rupert Friend often play multiple characters. Not everyone has the same amount of dialog but extra credit to every one of them for keeping up. Extra credit to the set designers and grips who have to slot things into place super fast… assuming it’s not a bunch of special effects and hidden edits.
Yes the film exhibits Anderson’s usual eye for scene and set and yes he asks his actors to emote without emoting. In this particular case, the staccato emotionless delivery feels like it has a purpose… to tell this story as rapidly as (in)humanly possible.
Which is perfectly fine since this is such a flabbergasting fast paced piece of filmed cinematic expression. It’s artificial and intentionally so. It’s distant and remote but with purpose. I rather loved it and stack it up amongst his best work… only behind his most human of stories (the one with the foxes, Royal Tenenbaums, and Moonrise Kingdom).
Score: 87