Book Review: The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared

Greetings! Where's that old sofa?

Questions for Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield

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AgentPete

Capo Famiglia
Guardian
Full Member
May 19, 2014
London UK
There are three all-too-brief moments in this movie when I loved what I was experiencing. For a 114-minute film, that’s not enough. Nevertheless, it’s better than many.

Adapting any bestselling novel for the screen is challenging enough, but one that is predicated on whimsy is well nigh unattainable. I see that Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian dismisses this film as “sentimentality and whimsy”. Well, the sentimentality factor is certainly there, but not imho dangerously emetic.

And as for whimsy... sorry, but since when has whimsy been a thought crime?

Whimsy per se isn’t bad. The Grand Budapest Hotel is nothing if not whimsy - and Box office Mojo tells me there are currently at least, 164,757,709 reasons why that film cannot be so haughtily dismissed, Mr. Bradshaw. OK?

However. This is Scandinavian whimsy. No, not an oxymoron - although there are moments when I found my mind drifting to entirely other matters, which is far from the hallmark of an engrossing movie. To be honest, it does plod – quite a lot.

A final observation. Vince Gilligan, producer of the iconic Breaking Bad, recently observed that an audience would accept deus ex machina plot points only if they served to make our protagonist’s position worse: not better.

And yes, I can see exactly what he means.

But.

In this movie, there are a ton of fortuitous interventions from above. They are invariably positive, and invariably get our protagonist out of a scrape.

And we love them.

Which goes to show... I think... that rules are there first to be understood... and then to be broken...
 
Blast. A dilemma. Do I watch them so I have an opinion or not as plodding waste of time? Is that why they write reviews; opinion without bothering? Works for me. I think. Or do I. Tricky.
 
Thanks for the reminder...I've been meaning to look up The Grand Budapest Hotel. Hear it's colourful and piquant, but not emetic.

Just watched the trailer. Sniggering but I'll need more energy to watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fg5iWmQjwk

Read a review on Sunday, Sunday Times re 100 Year-Old Man Who.... time to go back and re-read; the title put me off.

Thanks, Pete.
 
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This is one of the many things that has been languishing on my TBR list - I didn't even know it was being made into a movie. I always have mixed feelings about books I love being made into movies because they can be done so well or SO badly, and the latter can taint my enjoyment of the book.
 
Grand Budapest Hotel has done *so* well. Must have ran for nearly two months at my local...
 
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Questions for Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield

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