Wes Anderson applies his idiosyncratic style to four of Roald Dahl’s short stories meshing his wonderful presentation with Dahl’s absurd creations. 

The jewel in the crown is the 37 minute story of Henry Sugar. Whilst The Rat Catcher, The Swan and Poison all run at a more economical 17 minutes each. 

All the stories are presented as though they were stage plays. One or more of the characters will narrate the tale, whilst the set unfolds and reforms around them with stage hands providing props or sometimes helping with costume changes. As is now expected with an Anderson film the camera will move in a perfectly orchestrated fashion and only ever in straight lines. The stage show nature of the sets allows him to move between locations and perfect his metronomic delivery of speech patterns and imagery. 

Rather surprisingly Anderson only uses two returning actors from his usual coterie of actors. Whilst all of the actors appear multiple times, sometimes even in the same film as different characters. 

Ralph Fiennes, who previously appeared in The Grand Budapest Hotel appears in all of the short films as Roald Dahl but gets to bite his teeth into the larger role of The Rat Catcher.

Rupert Friend who appeared in Asteroid City this year takes a role in The Rat Catcher and is the narrator and lead in The Swan. 

Whilst the newcomers to the Anderson fold are Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade who all appear in two features each. Every one of them smoothly fitting into the Anderson style with Dev Patel being the stand out for me. His skills at narrating in both Henry Sugar and Poison are brilliant. 

Every one of the stories is wonderful and peculiar in its own way. Roald Dahl’s style seems to be a perfect bedfellow for Wes Anderson’s stylistic quirks. We have previously seen this with Fantastic Mr. Fox and after these four efforts it would seem that Anderson should adapt as many Dahl creations as possible. 

My personal order of preference would be: 

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – which tells the story of how a gambler learns to see without using his eyes. 

The Rat Catcher – where we learn some of the secrets of the titular character and where we get to see some Wes Anderson animation. 

The Swan – a story of a sensitive boy bullied by his peers. 

Poison – the tale of a man unable to move when a snake falls asleep on his stomach. 

With Asteroid City out this year also Wes Anderson is having a golden year.