Wes Anderson’s back. But not where you’d expect

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This article was published 03/12/2016 (3565 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Here’s the good news: Wes Anderson — who has been working away on an untitled animation project and hasn’t released a movie since 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel — has made a new short film. Come Together is four perfect minutes of precision whimsy.

The possible downside: it also happens to be a Christmas ad for clothing retailer H&M.

Many film fans are reacting by ignoring the commercial side. Slate’s headline sums it up: Wes Anderson has Made a New Short Film — Never Mind Why. And this approach works pretty well, because the H&M references in Come Together are subtle, while the Andersonian vibes are absolutely unmistakable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDinoNRC49c

In fact, if you happen to get out your Wes Anderson bingo card, you could probably handily win a horizontal line with “symmetrical framing,” “precocious child,” “dated audio equipment” and “pyjamas.”

YouTube remixers and Saturday Night Live satirists love to imagine what would happen if Anderson made a comic-book movie or a horror flick. Come Together is basically the corduroy-clad auteur’s super-compressed version of a holiday special.

The vignette takes place on a train on Dec. 25 in one of Anderson’s self-enclosed snow-globe worlds. Conductor Ralph (Anderson collaborator Adrien Brody) announces that challenging weather conditions and mechanical difficulties will delay the train’s arrival by 11 1/2 hours, seemingly cancelling Christmas for passengers and crew.

Conductor Ralph calls Stationmaster Fred for some backup, and with a bit of clockwork timing he manages to prep some yuletide cheer in the cafeteria section at the rear of the coach. Meanwhile, the camera exquisitely explores the double-decker train interior, which is painted some vaguely historical shade of delicate green. (Celery, pistachio, maybe mint?)

We drop in on some disparate characters in their separate compartments, including a perfectly poised but slightly melancholy Unaccompanied Minor. Fortunately, they’re all in for a really lovely surprise when they get to the cafeteria.

The endlessly cinematic Anderson is riffing on other works, starting with his own oeuvre. Anderson does love his trains, as suggested by The Darjeeling Limited and some crucial train scenes in The Grand Budapest Hotel. There are notes of Hitchcock thrillers and possibly some Kubrick lurking in those long corridors. Anderson also riffs on Agatha Christie’s train-related works — one of the characters is seen reading Christie’s 4.50 from Paddington (Fontana vintage edition, of course). It’s all counterbalanced with the pellucid, understated sweetness of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Anderson has brought his distinctive deadpan style to advertising projects before. He’s known for a dapper, droll, self-referencing American Express ad, which involves an elaborately staged one-take walk-along as Anderson directs a made-up movie. (“Not enough smoke and the snow was too loud!”)

The Amex commercial manages to project ironic sincerity (or possibly sincere irony?), while hitting another half-dozen Wes Anderson bingo calls, including tan jackets, Waris Ahluwalia and yellow titles in Futura Bold typeface.

Other Anderson-helmed adverts — for cars, banks, perfume and fashion labels — have managed to cram in his obsessions with quirky stop-motion animation, the French New Wave and boy scouts.

There is no obvious salesmanship going on in Come Together. You could say that makes things better, or you could take the hardline position that this actually makes things worse. By letting Anderson just do his thing, you could say, H&M is being devious: The Swedish-based corporation has given up the short-term goal of shilling disposable, inexpensive outfits in favour of the long game, in which the H&M label cleverly aligns itself with Anderson’s brand as a hipster style icon.

Even worse-worse, detractors might add, all this faux-anti-consumerism shamelessly ropes in Christmas, wrapping up fast fashion in Anderson’s adorable DIY celebration and bashful affirmation of our common human bond.

Now, normally I adore a good critique of co-optation, consumer capitalism and the Festive-Industrial Complex. Usually I’d be right in there.

But there’s something utterly disarming about Come Together — which I actually prefer to several of Anderson’s recent feature films — and about the whole kooky spirit of Wes Anderson Christmas (Wesmas?). I will put Grinchy analysis aside.

I’m not going to buy a pleated velvet skirt ($59.99) or V-neck jumper ($14.99). I am going to go make myself some paper snowflakes while drinking “chocolate-flavoured hot beverage with whipped topping” and watching Come Together for the umpteenth time.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca