Review of Grand Hotel (2008) by Rainer K — 21 Nov 2011

The mother of all anthology films is worth watching alone because of this fact.

I love anthology films (especially if they're well-made) and I always like films about hotels and hospitality industry as well because of my tourism background (I studied it in school).

The cast is full of stars - stars I've unfortunately never seen before in a film and just know them by name: the great Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and John and Lionel Barrymore. They are nice to watch, the acting is quite good, especially if you consider that the acting of the 30s was quite different to today's performances and I don't like them usually, and the characters are all quite interesting thanks to decent writing.

The Baron (John Barrymore), a very complex thief and gambler.

Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), a terminal-ill accountant - with a piteous story that evolves around him.

Flämmchen (Joan Crawford), a mysterious stenographer.

Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo), a Russian ballerina with awful little screentime if you consider her starring credit.

... the different stories of them (and some others too) interweave and lead to love, hate and squander, but in fact, it's all about the money!

Drama is the rare genre that worked the same 80 years ago as it does today, nevertheless like the doctor states at the beginning and at the end: "People come and go. Nothing ever happens" - nothing ever happens, that's the problem. The plot is quite thin even though all these subplots and short stories are quite nice they're not harmonic enough to make a superior entity.