Review | Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl-adapted short film series is both creatively stimulating and exhausting

While offering impressive aesthetics that the director is known for, Wes Anderson’s shorts struggle to overcome creative hurdles. Photo collage by SIMRAH AHMAD, Staff Photographer

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for all four of Wes Anderson’s Netflix short films. 

In an age of cinema where mainstream properties grow mundane, fan requests are ignored and money controls creativity, the films of Wes Anderson have always remained unique. The acclaimed director always delivers aesthetic presentations that fans of cinema can near-immediately identify as being his work. In his films, Anderson transports viewers into stories that boast equal amounts of serious reality and light-hearted fantasy. 

Arguably, then, there may be no better pieces for Anderson to adapt than the literary works of British writer Roald Dahl. After initial rumors that one of Dahl’s short stories, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” would be a feature project by Anderson, the film became one in a series of four short films based on Dahl’s short stories. “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” was soon accompanied by “The Swan,” “The Rat Catcher” and “Poison.” The four shorts were released on sequential days on Netflix beginning Sept. 27. 

“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”

The longest of the shorts, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” perhaps boasts the largest number of stories I’ve ever seen told in one film. It begins with Roald Dahl (Ralph Fiennes) telling the audience the story of Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch) before actually showing us Anderson’s rendition of the story. Coming upon a book about a man who could see without using his eyes, Sugar reads it; we are then transported into another story about that man, Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley) and his examination by doctors (Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade). Briefly within that story, Khan explains his own backstory, which is detailed to look like a theatrical production. 

Jumping between four stories-within-stories may seem confusing, and while it sometimes is, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is thankfully easy to follow. While Khan’s story can be difficult to follow, Sugar’s is easily digestable, showcasing his extensive training to master the art of seeing without one’s eyes in order to eventually cheat at a game of blackjack.

When he feels unfulfilled by his immense winnings because of his cheating, Sugar decides to throw his money off his balcony to passerby below. With director of photography Robert Yeoman’s camera situated far from Sugar and the balcony, the audience feels like an onlooker of a simple, kind, light-hearted gesture. 

A policeman (also Fiennes), though, scolds Sugar, advising him to put the money to better use. He does, cheating at the sport to win money that he then uses to create children’s hospitals all over the world. Anderson’s films never leave their audiences lost in comedy; there is always drama incorporated that illustrates a solemn moment. The ending to this story illustrates that — Sugar is reprimanded, learns a lesson and grows as a character because of it. 

While it may be easy to get lost in Anderson’s style, when his films incorporate traditional character arcs and easy-to-follow explanations, you can’t help but let his work take you away. 

“The Swan” 

In this story, an adult Peter Watson (Rupert Friend) recounts his bullying as a young child (Asa Jennings) by two bird-hunting children, Ernie and Raymond. 

Anderson’s overall style has always seemed like passionate constructions crossed with absurdist comedy, as if his filmography’s quirky character interactions, verbose bouts of dialogue and aesthetically pleasing backdrops are all things the director is self-aware of and is using comedically. 

“The Swan” seems to support this notion — as the adult Peter breaks the fourth wall and leads the audience through the story. Men pop in and out of the backdrop behind him, providing visual aids to what he describes. When imitating the voices of Ernie and Raymond, he speaks with a high-pitched inflection, despite always keeping a straight face. Such imitation is quite funny — I imagine such was Anderson’s and Friend’s intentions. 

Anderson’s use of narration, however (in this case), pulls the audience out of the actual story being told. In “The Swan,” narration sometimes directly conflicts with the action on-screen, often feeling like annoying interjection rather than amusing supplement. The narration is spoken so verbosely that I actually sometimes missed pieces of information — never enough to lose track of the entire story, but enough to miss small details like locations and character actions. 

“The Swan” is at its best when it pulls away from its direct telling of the narrative at hand and has Dahl (Fiennes) speak directly to the audience in a much more serious, non-aestheticized style about the ending of the story, which is somewhat heavy. Seeing the hyper-comedic style Anderson is known for take a back seat in service of a more serious tone was appreciated. 

“The Rat Catcher”

Two men — a narrator (Ayoade) and an automotive worker (Friend) — meet with a rat catcher (Fiennes), who disturbs them as he describes his methods of exterminating rodents. 

Anderson arguably crafts the most unique visual presentations of contemporary directors — his emphasis on color palettes and framing have caught the attention of film fans for nearly three decades.

In “The Rat Catcher,” Anderson’s production design remains the most enjoyable aspect of his work. Painted backdrops display comforting orange and yellow hues. Fiennes’ appearance does, in fact, look remarkably like a rat (his character is described as such). His stringy gray hair, pointed nose and crooked and pointy teeth are quite striking. Considering where the story goes, such an appearance is essential to nail. 

“The Rat Catcher” is mostly easy to follow and offers fun cutaways from its distinctive methodology. When the rat catcher begins to demonstrate how he will kill a live rat he has with him, the short spends almost a full minute focusing on an animated rat as the narrator describes its actions. As the narrator, the automotive worker and the rat catcher confer with each other off-screen, the rat takes the place of the rat catcher. Its mouth moves as the catcher speaks, as if it and the person are one and the same. By the short’s end, that comparison may be just.

Like “The Swan,” the narration over the piece is slightly taxing, at times feeling like it is serving the story and heightening drama and, at others, feeling like it is interrupting character actions and explanations. Anderson’s use of it is both a blessing and a curse; it’s in line with the director’s style but also interrupts the basic story he is trying to tell. 

“Poison”

“Poison” is the best of the four short films, offering an enjoyable visual style as well as incorporating equal bouts of comedy and drama. It illustrates my declaration that the director’s works are masterful at mixing self-aware hilarity and thought-provoking seriousness. 

The short follows the efforts of a Dr. Ganderbai (Kingsley) and Woods (Patel) to save Harry Pope (Cumberbatch) from a snake that has fallen asleep on his stomach. The story is so quickly engaging because the situation is so tense. Pope has been laying perfectly still for hours; he is advised not to speak or move by Ganderbai, which we repeatedly see is taxing for the man. 

“Poison” is the short film most told in a straight-forward style, almost always leading the audience through a traditional narrative, with fourth-wall breaking descriptive interjections by Woods. As mentioned earlier, some consensus around the shorts seem to be that their style and presentation are meant to be seen as theater reenactments of each story, thus explaining the narration and changing backdrops. For me, I appreciate when Anderson’s style is mostly straight forward, and seeing the director break that style is incredibly interesting. 

By the end of the short, Ganderbai and Woods find that there is no snake under Pope’s bed covers, leading all three men to briefly panic about its whereabouts. The characters’ panic is portrayed through unsteady camera work by Yeoman. This is the most striking production choice of the film because it is so different from Anderson’s typical rigid, framed presentation aesthetic. 

Mistaking a joke from Ganderbai to be an insult, Pope explodes at the doctor, who leaves and realizes that the man whose life he has just saved doesn’t truly have any appreciation for that fact. The downtrodden ending is noticeable because it again illustrates that after all of the shorts’ comedy and heightened style, Anderson’s portrayals of personal conflicts are what truly make you think.