The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun

Arthur Howitzer Jr. runs an American magazine office in a made-up French town. When he dies, his staff puts out one last issue. The movie turns three magazine stories into short films: a prisoner who paints, young people in a street revolt, and a chef who helps free a kidnapped boy. The tone is quirky, colorful, and carefully staged, like a living magazine page.

The main “woke” signals a normal viewer might notice are modest and sit inside one story more than the whole movie. Food writer Roebuck Wright is a black, gay American, loosely based on James Baldwin. He says he was once jailed for being gay, and he bonds with an immigrant chef as fellow outsiders. A middle story shows 1960s student protests (like France’s May 1968), full of youth politics and a manifesto, but it plays more like a stylish period farce than a modern identity lecture. Casting has some diversity in key parts, yet the film is still mostly a classic Wes Anderson ensemble of famous actors. There was no big anti-woke backlash; some left-leaning writers even said the movie was too soft on police and too white. Overall, identity and queer notes appear, but the movie is mainly about writers, style, and old-school journalism.