Overview
Much to every Wes Anderson fan's delight, 2023 delivered not one, not two, and not even just three or four new films by the acclaimed director — it treated audiences to five. In cinemas, Asteroid City brought the filmmaker's symmetry- and pastel-heavy style to the big screen again. On streaming, the rest of his efforts for the year arrived as shorts The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Ratcatcher and Poison.
When Netflix dropped Anderson's quartet of Roald Dahl-inspired shorts in September 2023, each arriving a day after the last, it inspired a question: why not package them all together and give the world another full-length Wes Anderson movie? Perhaps it was waiting for the director to win his first-ever Oscar for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar — for Best Live-Action Short, in fact — to make that happen, but it is indeed now happening. Accordingly, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More hits the streaming platform on Friday, March 15.
Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) talking directly to the camera. Symmetrical shots after symmetrical shots. Dazzlingly gorgeous patterns as far as the eye can see. Yes, they're all in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. That part of what's now an anthology film tells of a wealthy man who is so fond of wagering that he comes up with a crafty plan — after discovering a guru who can see without using his eyes, he decides to learn to the same to cheat while having a bet.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar itself springs from one of the seven tales in Dahl's 1977 book The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. Soon on Netflix, it'll be packaged with Anderson's other three shorts from Dahl's work. The whole anthology cycles through a few core cast members, all of which play multiple roles. Stepping in front of the camera for Anderson: Cumberbatch, Dev Patel (The Green Knight), Ben Kingsley (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Richard Ayoade (The Souvenir: Part II) and Rupert Friend (High Desert).
And in glorious news for The Grand Budapest Hotel fans, Ralph Fiennes (The Menu) also reteams with the director.
The Swan also takes inspiration from a tale from the same book, this time about a small and smart boy being bullied. As for The Ratcatcher, it adapts a lesser-known story of the same name — not from the same text this time — which is unsurprisingly about a rodent exterminator. Then, Poison dates back to 1950, focusing on a man finding a venomous snake. In 1958, the same tale was adapted for TV by none other than Alfred Hitchcock, in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
All up, that's 90 minutes of new Anderson work. So, as we said multiple times in 2023, watching them all together turns them into an anthology feature. With Netflix's new release, you'll no longer have to press any buttons to get from one film to the next.
Check out the trailer for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More below:
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More will be available to stream via Netflix from Friday, March 15. Read our review.
Images: courtesy of Netflix.