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‘THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR’ debuts with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Sure, we were absolutely delighted to learn that Wes Anderson would be making his Netflix-only debut with his upcoming short film, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. But, still, it was a bummer that the symmetric shooting style the filmmaker is synonymous with wouldn’t be seen on the big screen this time around. Now, fans can have their cake and eat it too as their sugar fix will be available both at home and in theaters. Prior to its premiere on the streamer on September 27, 2023, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar will celebrate a limited theatrical release on September 20, 2023.
It’s not animated—the actors are live-action and are a familiar and reliable bunch. Ralph Fiennes plays a version of Dahl; the movie opens in an Andersonian recreation of the writer’s real-life “writing hut,” where, after mumbling a list of what it takes to get him started on a story, Fiennes starts telling what purports to be a true one.
Dahl’s actual story, the action of which spans the globe, could conceivably be made into a very expensive multi-location movie. Anderson limits the action to a series of meticulous sets (of course they are) that, in this iteration, reminded me of the work of the fantastic Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman, who put live-action actors into animated backgrounds. All the actors address the camera directly, serving as narrators and characters.
As they’ve done in the past with titles including Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, the streamer made the move to do a simultaneous drop, allowing fans to decide how they’d like to see Anderson’s latest project. Known for bringing fantastically vibrant worlds to life in his productions, with the most recent being Asteroid City, catching the filmmaker’s second dip into the world of Roald Dahl’s catalog following 2009’s stop-motion flick, Fantastic Mr. Fox won’t be one to miss.
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