Hotel Chevalier

Hotel Chevalier (2007) is a Wes Anderson short drama you can watch online on iFILM. Thirteen minutes, two actors: Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman alone in a butter-yellow Paris hotel room.

Jack Whitman has holed up at the Hotel Chevalier, ordering room service and watching old movies in self-imposed exile. The phone rings. A woman he has clearly been trying to forget is on her way up, and her arrival reopens everything he came here to escape. Their reunion plays out in half-finished sentences, old wounds and reluctant tenderness, with the most important things left unsaid.

The film works as a prologue to the feature The Darjeeling Limited, and it stands perfectly well on its own. Anderson packs a whole love story into one room and one conversation, scored to Peter Sarstedt. A small, precise gem for anyone who loves the director distilled. Stream Hotel Chevalier (2007) online on iFILM.