Attribution: Photo by Nicolas J Leclercq on Unsplash
Storytime with Wes Anderson: Review of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
By Geoff Carter
It’s not very often that an established feature-length motion picture director will release a short feature. The New York Stories anthology film featured segments directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, and Martin Scorsese. Quentin Tarantino directed “The Man from Hollywood” segment in the film Four Rooms, but outside of this sort of anthology genre, short films directed by established directors are somewhat uncommon. So, the release of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Wes Anderson on Netflix, is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.
Not that Wes Anderson has followed any sort of a traditional career path. He has written and directed films as wildly diverse as the dysfunctional family sagas The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom to the delightful, animated fancies Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, and the unique and singular—and decidedly experimental—creations The French Dispatch and Asteroid City. Henry Sugar shouldn’t surprise us. Nothing Anderson does should.
In 2021, Netflix acquired the rights to The Roald Dahl Story Collection and started making plans to make The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar a feature film, obtaining the services of Wes Anderson to write and direct the project. According to The India Times, Wes Anderson has said that Henry Sugar is one of four Roald Dahl short stories—“The Rat Catcher”, “Poison”, and “The Swan”—that have already been adapted by the director and are now also available Netflix.
Like many of Anderson’s works, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is packaged within a series of narrative frames. The film opens with a long shot of author Roald Dahl (Ralph Fiennes) in his workshop, softly talking to himself before looking up. He stares at the viewer before beginning to read the story. As he relates some of the exposition, Dahl gets up and appears to walk directly into the camera but then cuts to him opening the door to his writing cottage. A spotlight highlights him standing next to his door before another very theatrical set change—flats slide in and out—takes us to his front gate.
As in every Wes Anderson film, the color palette and composition is carefully conceived and immaculately rendered. Dahl’s studio is a warm combination of yellows, creams, and earth tones. When the narrative is passed off to Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch) himself, the setting and colors change to a cooler, blue-toned motif, reflective of Sugar’s self-centered and unfeeling character. He is a rich man only concerned with becoming richer. At a friend’s house, he discovers a Dr. Chatterjee’s (Dev Patel) slim case book about the case of Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), a man who could see without using his eyes.
As Sugar opens the book, the narrative switches to Chatterjee’s reciting his case study. The doctor becomes the narrator, even to the point where he says—in quick asides—“he said” after another character speaks. In a absurdly comic turn, the doctors prove Khan’s ability to see without his eyes by gluing his eyes shut, putting dough over his eyes and covering his head with an absurd plaster shell. Khan leaves, leading the doctors on a goofy chase through the hospital and outside, where he disappears in traffic.
That night, the good doctor goes to see Khan, who tells him his story. Once again, the narrative framing changes. When Khan takes over the narrative, the action is depicted on a narrow strip atop a patterned flat until he finally meets the Great Yogi (Richard Ayode) who reluctantly agrees to teach him how to levitate his own body. When Khan leaves the road and enters the jungle, the setting transforms into a beautifully lush, almost Rousseau-like, rendition of the forest.
After reading the case study, Sugar realizes that if he could master the art of seeing without using his eyes, he could make a fortune at gambling. He throws himself into the strict discipline of mental concentration necessary to attain this, and after three years, he is able to win thirty thousand pounds playing blackjack, but, curiously, discovers he doesn’t care about the money anymore. After being berated by a policeman (Ralph Fiennes) for throwing the money into the street, he hatches an elaborate plan to travel the world, winning money from casinos, and giving it to orphanages and hospitals.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is part storybook, part play, and part cinema. Its singular production design, staging, and screenplay, and performances defy the traditional mimetic cinematic tradition. It transcends the cinema. Some scenes, like the sequence in which Khan enters the jungle in search of the guru, is reminiscent of a child’s pop-up book. Theatrical tropes such as spotlights, moving flats, and even the box upon which characters levitate not only underscore the unreality of the narrative (which is curiously and repeatedly billed as a true story). Unlike conventional films, which typically attempt to construct their own hermetic realities, Henry Sugar embraces the conventions which separate it from reality. It doesn’t imitate reality; it makes its own reality, a narrative hybrid that embraces the theater, books, and even puppetry.
The French Dispatch, Anderson’s self-professed tribute to the New Yorker magazine, was another film which integrated elements of journalism, two-dimensional art, and other media. Earlier films of his, like The Royal Tenenbaumsor Moonrise Kingdom, which could for the most part be termed as traditional realism, still incorporated animation, stylized framing, and carefully conceived color palettes. Wes Anderson’s vision of cinema does not preclude extending reality into realms of fantasy, the written word, and theatrical tropes. His sense of the visual metaphor is uninhibited by the boundaries of the picture frame, and his sense of whimsy is evident in his use of cartoon tropes (rat’s death scene in Fantastic Mr. Fox), frame composition, (the wonderful board game closet in The Royal Tenenbaums), or puppetry (Moonrise Kingdom). He is, undoubtedly, the most original filmmaker working today.
The performances in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar are perfectly calibrated and delightfully tongue-in-cheek. Patel’s rendition Dr. Chatterjee’s deadpan delivery about his work with Khan is hilarious. As Khan, Kingsley is at first serene, but then, after being blindfolded, his manic rush out of the hospital seems very nearly slapstick. Kingsley shifts gears seamlessly. As Henry Sugar, Cumberbatch arcs from the selfish and greedy millionaire almost inexplicably to the philanthropist. While the story never offers a definitive explanation why this happens, the viewer can only be left to assume Sugar’s concentrated efforts at self-improvement (albeit for selfish purposes) has steered him away from self-centeredness and into realms of higher consciousness. At any rate, Benedict Cumberbatch delivers a performance that is funny and empathic. His Scrooge-like transformation at the end of the story is heartwarming, and even though only explained in an intuitive sense—heartwarming.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is not only a treat for the eyes, it is an inspiring and whimsical story that reminds us that the only true reality lies within our own imaginations.