Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In a Paris hotel room, Jack Whitman lies on a bed. His phone rings; it's a woman on her way to see him, a surprise. She arrives and the complications of their relationship emerge in bits and pieces. Will they make love? Is their relationship over? (A prequel to The Darjeeling Limited, 2007.)
Hotel Chevalier is a compact, elegantly crafted short film from Wes Anderson that functions as a prequel to The Darjeeling Limited. Its cinematography is genuinely exceptional — the golden Paris hotel room is immaculately composed, with Anderson's precise framing and warm palette at their most intimate and controlled. The plot is deliberately slight, a two-hander of unresolved emotional tension that works for the short form but doesn't reach beyond its modest ambitions. Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman perform well within the constrained, stylized register Anderson requires, though the short running time limits full character development. Novelty is above average — it feels distinctly Andersonian but the prequel-short format was a genuinely interesting choice for 2007. The ending, intentionally open and melancholy, suits the mood but doesn't transcend its set-up.