The world’s wealthiest people gather in Switzerland’s posh Gstaad Palace Hotel to ring in the Millenium with all its Y2K uncertainties: how could the director of the amusing parody Fearless Vampire Killers miss squeezing some laughs out of a situation dripping with more irony than diamonds off an heiress’s neck?
Perhaps a theme, a plot, a storyline would have helped? Writer-director Roman Polanski’s The Palace is a situation waiting for comedy to come along; a portrait oozing with bitterness, spite and disgust for a society that lusts after the demon money, amplifying their vulgarity at every turn. There isn’t much more to the film than that.
Venice has always been a pretty safe haven for Polanski’s movies, though his open court case over accusations that he raped a 13-year-old girl in 1977 have made it impossible for him to physically attend the festival. It nevertheless proved a good launching pad for his last film, the 2019 historical drama An Officer and a Spy about the Dreyfus affair: the film took home a Silver Lion Special Jury Prize and proceeded to be nominated for many more awards around the world (rarely winning, however.)
More is the shock to see The Palace’s flimsiness, which is even more glaring against the generally high production values and a decent cast that includes Oliver Masucci (When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit), Fanny Ardant and John Cleese, not to mention Mickey Rourke in a role that stands out for its vulgar brutality.
It’s impossible to view the sprawling castle-like hotel nestled into a snowy Swiss valley and not think of Wes Anderson’s iconic The Grand Budapest Hotel, a film whose weird delights and warm story are the farthest thing from Polanski’s monster farm. To the overloud tunes of Alexandre Desplat’s ironically cheery holiday music, the hotel manager Hansueli Kopf (Masucci) lines his hundred-strong staff up military style in the grand ballroom and imparts their final marching orders. In twelve hours the hotel will be fully occupied and celebrating this very special New Year’s Eve, which many think will mark the end of the world as the computers turn the clock to 2000. (Remember that false alarm?)
As the guests start arriving, chaos begins, which Hansueli and his practiced staff adroitly handle like the professionals they are. Mr. Crush (Rourke), wearing a blond toupee and a face the color of burnt toast from too many sunlamps, lives up to his name and blusters in without a reservation. Finally, the concierge comes up with a small room, but he wants a large suite, and occupies one at random until a large, burly Black man comes in with two women and orders him out. Not very funny, but that’s par for the courses.
His story continues when a Czech family of four turns up in the hotel, naively claiming to be his son and family. Crush disagrees in an ugly scene in the lobby and Hansueli takes the Czechs under his wing, moving them around to unused spaces in the hotel. This altruistic kindness is probably unique in the film and not really explained. In other situations Hansueli bends over backwards to accommodate crazy demands of the guests, and receives a bottle of red wine poured down his shirt in return.
Limos continue to arrive, spewing out a bevy of elderly women whose faces betray a lifetime of plastic surgery. They cluster around the celebrity surgeon Dr. Lima (Joaquim de Almeida), who many have to thank for the way they look. Soon, however, a series of absurd accidents require a doctor’s assistance and Lima becomes Hansueli’s go-to man.
The first mishap occurs when Mr. Toby, the small canine companion of a glamorous Marquise (Ardant), poops on the bed. She faints, fearing her beloved dog is mortally ill, but Dr. Lima arrives and reassures her it’s only worms. The problem is she, too, may be infected…
And so it goes, as one guest after another is unmasked as a vain, frivolous egomaniac, which was perfectly obvious from their first appearance on screen. One couple is celebrating their first anniversary of marriage: he’s 97 (John Cleese, very Monty Pythonic) and she’s 22 (Bronwyn James, excellent). He dies with an ecstatic expression, in bed, with the hefty young woman on top of him. The problem is they’re stuck together, another task for Hansueli to resolve.
It’s hard to single out individual characters who have been mistreated, since they basically all are. One egregious scene makes fun of Dr. Lima’s wife, who has Alzheimer’s and keeps putting sugar in her coffee, spoonful after spoonful, until he intervenes. Not funny. Then there are the Russians: a clutch of bodyguards who store heavy suitcases in the hotel vault (this is the one joke that actually has a punchline), four or five glam girls who scream and laugh shrilly, and one tough oligarch whose middle-aged wife likes her vodka so much she passes out in a plate of caviar. As bad as this is, the Russians offer viewers a moment of hope that the film has some real-life context when Boris Yeltsin appears on TV announcing he is resigning and handing the reins of power over to his trusted prime minister – Vladimir Putin. Sadly, it’s a very brief scene.
The Italian-Swiss-Polish-French coproduction may be light on laughs, but it certainly knows how to throw a New Year’s party with the $12,000 champagne corks flying. Tonino Zera’s set design stresses the bright lights and glitter, ably captured in Pawel Edelman’s luxurious cinematography.
Director, screenplay: Roman Polanski
Screenplay: Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Piaskowska
Cast: Oliver Masucci, Fanny Ardant, John Cleese, Bronwyn James, Joaquim De Almeida, Luca Barbareschi, Milan Peschel, Fortunato Cerlino, Mickey Rourke
Producers: Luca Barbareschi, Paolo Del Brocco, Jean-Louis Porchet, Wojciech Gostomczyk
Cinematography: Pawel Edelman
Editing: Hervé De Luze
Production design: Tonino Zera
Costume design: Carlo Poggioli
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Sound: Lucien Balibar
Production companies: Eliseo Entertainment (Italy), Rai Cinema (Italy), CAB Productions (Switzerland), Lucky Bob (Polish), RP Productions (France)
World Sales: Goodfellas
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of competition)
In English
100 minutes
