Watching a Wes Anderson film, one should expect several choice adjectives to pop into one’s head: creative, well-shot, and fantastic. This is the case to the ultimate extent with his newest release, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which details the immersive story of a hotel lobby boy and his friend and manager, the greatest hotel concierge of all time, Gustave H. The two are tangled up in a sarcastically overdramatized plot that is part murder-mystery, part heist, and part jailbreak.

‘Fantastic’ is perhaps the most apt of our choice adjectives. From the first definition of the word, Anderson fits in astounding detail in each of the film’s shots: perfect symmetry, little understated jokes in each frame, and beautiful transitional cuts and shots which dance just around each trope sardonically without falling prey to their commonness. This, more than anything, is the shining beauty of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Observing that everything in each scene is excruciatingly planned out, excruciatingly perfect, one cannot help but feel relaxed.

And then there is the second, obviously topical definition. Anderson, as is apparent from his theatrical style, writes as well as directs his films. It’s a decision supported by many other important (I’d say good but I’m about to include Tim Burton) directors: Nolan, Tarantino, Burton, et cetera. This is pivotal. It is apparent with every frame, each color choice, each actor used and each piece of music that this is Anderson’s true vision. The film is a fully cohesive whole, neither lacking any elements nor including anything that it should not have. The story, in its essence comedic, has the power to make the audience feel deeply concerned at the same point that they are knowledgeable of the ludicrousness of it all. And, just as Anderson artistically plays with his cinematography, he plays with tropes in his plots (as he typically does – but it’s really well done here) – inserting into this romanticized tale of an old hotel the archetypal characters of prison members, scarred villains, and naive attorneys overly attached to the law and under attached to their lives. Most astounding is that by the end we have simply watched a story: unpinned by overwrought messages or emotional grabs and simply occupied with enjoyment.

The Grand Budapest Hotel reads like a Vonnegut novel. It’s silly, unserious and self-knowingly absurd, but it works too well. It is a celebration of the art of storytelling, the way in which the mind can throw together fantasy and emotion onto a page or onto a reel of film, and of the way in which it can always be kept new and beautiful.