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For his second cinematic magic trick of 2023 (the first was the sublime " Asteroid City "), director Wes Anderson conjures a shaggy dog story without a hair out of place. The source is the author Roald Dahl , whose The Fantastic Mr. Fox  inspired Anderson’s first foray into stop-motion animation. Fox  was a kid’s book of sorts, but Anderson honored its more adult stresses and the slightly sinister undercurrent beneath its already sardonic ironies.

This is Anderson’s first Netflix movie, and it’s the first that the filmmaker said was made under protest, so to speak. Anderson had wanted to make the project for a while, during which time Dahl’s estate made a rather rich deal (one presumes) with the streamer. Anderson has given the streamer a nearly 40-minute precision-tooled narrative mostly in the boxy Academy ratio, although at crucial points, the frame itself bounces around in the wider frame overall.

It’s not animated—the actors are live-action and are a familiar and reliable bunch. Ralph Fiennes plays a version of Dahl; the movie opens in an Andersonian recreation of the writer’s real-life “writing hut,” where, after mumbling a list of what it takes to get him started on a story, Fiennes starts telling what purports to be a true one.

Dahl’s actual story, the action of which spans the globe, could conceivably be made into a very expensive multi-location movie. Anderson limits the action to a series of meticulous sets (of course they are) that, in this iteration, reminded me of the work of the fantastic Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman, who put live-action actors into animated backgrounds. All the actors address the camera directly, serving as narrators and characters. And they speak with little overt inflection (although quite a bit of subtle craft) at a very fast pace. 

The words are almost all Dahl’s own, but Anderson has condensed the actual short story, which is fanciful though hardly child-aimed (although it’s not actively child-unfriendly, either). He understands he can’t improve on the dry wit of Dahl’s verbiage, so he doesn’t try. Describing the mega-rich title character, Dahl notes, “Men like Henry Sugar are to be found drifting like seaweed all over the world. They can be seen especially in London, New York, Paris, Nassau, Montego Bay, Cannes, and San Tropez. They are not particularly bad men, but they are not good men either. They are of no particular importance; they’re simply part of the decoration.”

The story is a meta-narrative (unless, of course, you choose to believe Dahl’s assertion that it’s true) that takes off when Henry ( Benedict Cumberbatch , utterly perfect), bored, goes to the drastic extreme of taking a book off of a rich friend’s library shelf. The slimmest volume he sees, of course. It turns out to be a sort of dissertation about a man who can see without his eyes. The man in question is played by Ben Kingsley , and the doctors who confirm his power are Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade . The thing that catches Henry’s attention is this man’s ability to see through downturned playing cards. Henry is a gambler and not a particularly skilled one. Henry teaches himself how to see without eyes using a study method originated by a cranky yogi and absenting himself from society for several years due to his devotion/obsession.

The power-that-lets-you-cheat-at-cards bit was featured, cinephiles know, in Roger Corman ’s 1963 “X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes.” In that film, the power is chemically induced and is only fun for a while—eventually, Ray Milland’s character sees too much, which, when you get to the end of the cosmos, gets to be a drag. (This theme is treated in “ Oppenheimer ,” too, when you think about it.)  

The upshot of Henry’s achievement is rather different, and if you don’t already know Dahl’s story, it's rather gentler than what you might expect of the writer. It’s disarming and lovely to see a spiritual growth parable rendered in Anderson’s jewel-box style. His delivery here is not willfully eccentric but gorgeously centered. Form underscores content in "Henry Sugar" in a most delightful way. 

This review was filed from the 2023 Venice Film Festival. "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" will be released theatrically on September 20th and on Netflix on September 27th.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)

Benedict Cumberbatch as Henry Sugar

Ralph Fiennes as Roald Dahl

Ben Kingsley

Richard Ayoade

Rupert Friend

• Wes Anderson

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Review: ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ is Wes Anderson at his sweetest

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Every wonderful story, Wes Anderson surely believes, is the work of a wonderful storyteller — or, at the very least, a storyteller worthy of the viewer’s time and the camera’s attention. And so it’s no surprise that “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” Anderson’s brilliant new adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1977 tale of the same apt title, should open with Dahl himself. Played with thinning hair and a curmudgeonly sniff by Ralph Fiennes, the author sits in his Buckinghamshire writing hut (a fastidiously yellowed re-creation of Dahl’s real-life backyard workspace), pausing for a moment to tidy up his station before plunging us into a rapid-fire reading of his latest work.

This early, generous tribute to the author is, ironically, one of Anderson’s few departures from Dahl’s text. More ironically still, it’s the kind of fillip that readily identifies Anderson as this movie’s real auteur, in case you couldn’t guess already from the boxy frames, the symmetrical compositions, the harmoniously balanced colors and the deadpan directness with which the actors regularly address their speech to the camera. Few filmmakers are more consistently fascinated by the lives of writers, real and imagined, or more insistent that a literary creation cannot be considered apart from its creator. His recent movies have embraced this conceit as a matter of structural integrity: Think of the elaborate ’50s teleplay device of “Asteroid City,” the vintage magazine-style packaging of “The French Dispatch,” the concentrically layered narratives of “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

One of the marvels of “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” a short film now available for streaming on Netflix, is that it so effortlessly distills these ongoing preoccupations while remaining utterly faithful to its source material. Not that fidelity is either a requirement or a virtue, as admirers of “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Anderson’s stop-motion, feature-length Dahl-house of delights, will attest. “Henry Sugar” is a more modest affair, but also in some ways a subtler, more satisfying one. Running just 41 minutes, which is roughly the time it might take you to read the original story, it employs no fewer than four narrators across a span of more than six decades, all in service of a deftly multi-threaded yarn that has the elegance and concision of a well-executed magic trick.

Which is all too fitting, magic being one of the movie’s chief concerns. In short order, Fiennes’ on-screen Dahl conjures the character of Henry Sugar, an idly wealthy 1930s bachelor — and a real-life person, we’re told, hiding under a false name — played by a customarily dapper Benedict Cumberbatch. Stumbling on an odd manuscript in a friend’s library one rainy afternoon, Henry promptly passes the narrative baton to a Calcutta-based surgeon named Z.Z. Chatterjee (Dev Patel), who proceeds to relate an extraordinary encounter with scientific rigor. (Here and elsewhere, Anderson honors the idiosyncrasy of the storyteller: When Chatterjee punctuates his own dialogue with “I said” or describes actions right as they’re unfolding on-screen, he isn’t merely being whimsical or redundant; he’s trying to establish a verifiable record.)

It is Chatterjee who introduces us to Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), a wild-haired man of mystery who, we learn, has perfected the mysterious art of seeing without the use of his eyes. Even with his peepers sealed shut and tightly blindfolded, he can walk unassisted through a bustling hospital, dodging every obstacle in his path. Even more wondrous than this demonstration is Khan’s lengthy explication of how he came by this gift; suffice to say that it involves near-superhuman feats of visual focus and mental concentration, plus a firm conviction that “there are other ways of sending an image to the brain.”

Anderson, himself something of a master of counterintuitive alternatives, gives this idea its own fascinating cinematic correlative. In a film about transcending the limitations of one’s vision, he is careful not to show us everything, certain that our imaginations should do some of the visual lifting. And in a story about fantastical possibilities, he and his longtime collaborators, including the cinematographer Robert Yeoman and the production designer Adam Stockhausen, employ a beguilingly primitive form of movie magic. Anderson’s delight in all things analogue and antiquarian is in full flower here, as is his belief that real enchantment demands a measure of winkingly obvious artifice: The more we can see the seams, the grander the illusion.

And so when Henry moves from one room of a house to another, or steps out onto a bustling casino floor, the building moves with him, realigning itself in a flurry of shifting walls. Some of those walls are pushed aside by stagehands, who pop up regularly to reconfigure the scenery, hand off props and, in one delightful gag, reposition Khan himself on the opposite side of the frame. Henry goes on a drive assisted by old-school rear projection. Khan’s miraculous blindfolded walk is filmed almost entirely from behind — a rudimentary solution to a technical problem that nonetheless makes you wonder, as no CGI-dependent sequence ever would, exactly how it might have been pulled off. The four splendid principal actors cycle through multiple roles, as does a slyly funny Richard Ayoade, who first pops up as one of Chatterjee’s medical colleagues. And when characters levitate off the ground, as they do from time to time, the effect is managed by — well, see for yourself. Some tricks shouldn’t be spoiled.

All this might sound like a typically fastidious exercise in Andersonian ornateness, a return to a lavishly appointed bubble-world that turns the cinematic frame into a proscenium arch (emphasis on the arch). But seldom has the director’s formal cleverness felt so pure and purposeful, so vitally linked to the tale he’s telling. His movies have always proposed — sometimes ingeniously, sometimes exhaustingly, always sincerely — that we might benefit from looking at the world from a fresh vantage. And so it is with “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” in which a revolutionary new way of seeing holds the key to an altogether deeper transformation.

Henry, realizing that Khan’s secret could make him an even wealthier man than he already is, sets out to master its mysteries — only to discover, to his surprise and delight, that those mysteries have also had their way with him. Deception, he realizes, can be used to magnanimous ends, and magic, this movie amply proves, can be a force for good.

'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar'

Rating: PG, for smoking Running time: 41 minutes Playing: Streaming on Netflix

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‘the wonderful story of henry sugar’ review: benedict cumberbatch in wes anderson’s mini-marvel of a roald dahl adaptation.

Set to premiere on Netflix next month, the 40-minute film also features Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

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Like the rich food at restaurants aspiring to Michelin stars, every shot here might feel over-flavored for the Anderson -averse, prompting a sort of cinematic dyspepsia. By that logic, the movie’s brevity (40 minutes) might make for a more digestible snack, so even Anderson-phobes will perhaps find in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar a perfectly well-balanced reduction. It’s got most of Anderson’s signature flavor notes but in healthy, clarified stock.

Did you groove to his adaptation of British writer Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox ? Well, this one is based on a Dahl short story from a collection more aimed at adults, and represents an adaptation more faithful to its original than Fox but still sieved through Anderson’s unique visual style. And while Russian doll-style, story-within-story construction is a recurrent feature in many of Anderson’s films, Dahl’s original text was written that way from the start.

This mise en abyme opens with a narrating Ralph Fiennes, star of The Grand Budapest Hotel , decked out to resemble a cardigan-clad Dahl himself, sitting in a replica of the writer’s own writing hut at his home, Gipsy House in Buckinghamshire. Looking straight into the camera, and smoothly mimicking Dahl’s slightly nasal English cadences, he explains how this will be a story about Henry Sugar ( Benedict Cumberbatch , a new addition to Anderson’s ensemble of regular players). Henry is a perfectly ordinary scion of the British upper class, “wealthy because he had had a rich father who was now dead,” as Dahl describes him.

With fearless symmetry, the narrative descends downstairs to Khan and the yogi’s stories, spends some time in a jungle represented by stage props and animated miniature tigers, and then it’s back up to Henry Sugar’s world. Deciding this seeing without using eyes would be a capital way to make a fortune at casinos, Henry puts all this energy into following the method laid out in the doctor’s account of Khan’s practice. But the very process of learning the craft itself changes him, and once he’s made a killing at Lord’s, his favorite casino (where Kinglsey is the blackjack dealer and pop singer Jarvis Cocker mans the door), he realizes he no longer wants the money so much.

In fact, like so many other Anderson protagonists, from Dignan (Owen Wilson) in his debut feature Bottle Rocket through Mr. Fox to the actors in Asteroid City , the big lesson learned is that it’s the process not the prize that counts — the journey, not the destination, and, as they like to say in cheesy adventure tales, the friends made along the way. A more generous interpretation would see in Henry Sugar and many of those other Anderson stories, an allegory about the primacy of craftsmanship itself as its own reward, even if the end result is revealed to be absurd and pointless.

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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar review – Wes Anderson’s short and sweet Roald Dahl tale

Venice film festival: Anderson’s second Dahl adaptation is a droll 40 minutes of beautifully composed nested stories, with Benedict Cumberbatch as a gambler who learns how to beat the house

T he sun-splashed Venice film festival provided an unlikely backdrop for the premiere of Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, an enjoyable bedtime story of sorts, converted from the 1976 tale by Roald Dahl. The guests sheltered from the heat inside the main cinema while the director moseyed on stage with a diffident shrug. What followed was a cosy, wholesome, purely soothing affair. The only thing missing was a cup of warm cocoa.

“I hope that you like it. And if you don’t that’s OK, because it’s very short,” Anderson explained by way of introduction, setting the scene for a droll 40-minute featurette that will duly be heading over to Netflix within the space of a month. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar marks the director’s second adaptation of Dahl, after his animated take on Fantastic Mr Fox , and recounts the fortunes of a wealthy gambler (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) who masters the ability to read the reverse sides of playing cards. Armed with this superpower, Sugar sets out to fleece his favourite London casino … only to awake the next morning feeling more morally bankrupt than ever.

Close your eyes and imagine a Wes Anderson movie. The odds are that it looks very much like this one: beautifully composed and tailored to within an inch of its life. For better or worse, the director has a house style. For better or worse, he now seems chained to it. In Anderson’s best work (Rushmore, say, or The Royal Tenenbaums), the painstaking design gives the impression of somehow being authored by his protagonists. It’s almost as if the carefully arranged frames are the characters’ immaculate conceptions: an attempt at self-actualisation, or a fireguard against their vulnerabilities. In his lesser work, though, the technique is too much. It sucks oxygen from the films and reduces the people to waxworks. One longs to break open a window and allow in some fresh air.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, to its credit, makes a bonus of its artifice. Leaning into his role as Dahl’s translator, seemingly showing his workings every chance that he has, Anderson proceeds to spin a story within a story, deftly augmenting the conceit with sliding stage-sets and frequent nods to the audience.

The tale starts out being narrated by Dahl (ably impersonated by Ralph Fiennes) in his writing shed. From there the baton is passed to Dr ZZ Chatterjee (Dev Patel) in Calcutta, then to Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), the self-styled “Man Who Could Read Without His Eyes” – and finally back to feckless Henry Sugar in his London townhouse. These people tell the story while simultaneously performing their roles, turning from the action to address the camera with such gusto that they surely risk whiplash – but the effect is amusing and invites us in on the joke. At one point Anderson even relaxes enough to poke fun at his own control-freak reputation. He has a stagehand materialise mid-scene in order to move Kingsley from one side of the shot to the other.

“This will change my life!” exclaims vain, pointless Sugar upon gaining his all-seeing magic power – and so it does, except not quite in the way that he initially thought it might. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar was widely regarded as one of Dahl’s gentler, happier short stories – insofar as it didn’t feature a serial killer landlady or an infant Adolf Hitler. It spun a reassuring yarn of redemption and saluted a bad man who made good. Anderson’s short, sweet, neatly managed production follows the original tale pretty much to the letter.

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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar Reviews

Anderson’s whimsical, storybook approach fits perfectly for this playful adaptation of a 1977 Roald Dahl short story about how a gambler learns to cheat by seeing through cards.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 4, 2024

Rather than expanding and becoming richer, Anderson’s method folds in, like origami.

Full Review | Mar 22, 2024

Faith is the operative word here: here's a faithful adaptation that feels of a piece with Anderson's filmography while continuing a new chapter in his body of work that can only be described as a carefully controlled burst of creativity.

Full Review | Mar 11, 2024

There was something so marvelous in seeing this actor in four roles, each of which he nailed, in these excellent films that did not get the recognition they deserved.

Full Review | Mar 8, 2024

Quirky and fabulous.

Full Review | Feb 5, 2024

For fans of Dahl or the director, this is unmissable.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 27, 2023

It's a fun film, kept short, light and beguiling.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Dec 10, 2023

An adaptation of a Ronald Dahl story about changing your life and doing the impossible.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 5, 2023

Sugar embarks on a wonderful adventure, traveling the world, using his abilities for the benefit of others, not for himself. This is the kind of movie we need right now, in world where destructive selfishness and xenophobia are running rampant.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Nov 17, 2023

...a wittily verbose master class on the way voice can be employed in fiction.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 2, 2023

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is a fascinating experiment in narration and storytelling.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Oct 25, 2023

The story-telling here is beautiful.

Full Review | Oct 23, 2023

The longest of [Anderson's Dahl shorts] collection is also by far its richest.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Oct 22, 2023

Wes Anderson's inventive, precisely calibrated cinematic contrivance works - making this enigmatic anthology enchanting viewing.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 17, 2023

The result is exhilarating to watch, with Anderson's witty filmmaking sitting perfectly alongside Dahl's darkly provocative narratives.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 17, 2023

It’s thrilling to be distracted by really good storytelling. But it’s more thrilling to be provoked, or even altered by it.

Full Review | Oct 16, 2023

I think this is the just the right bite-size amount of Wes Anderson... I kind of feel like shorts are an excellent use of his his style [and] his voice.

Full Review | Oct 14, 2023

Anderson seems to have perfected the art of simultaneously showing and telling – a tinkertoy approach to cinema that can pall over the length of a feature but plays with delightful brio in a short.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 13, 2023

A confounding mix of admirable skill and disconcerting ideas carries over from author Roald Dahl’s short stories into a series of mini films directed by Wes Anderson.

Full Review | Oct 12, 2023

As charming and heartfelt as any film Anderson has made.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 10, 2023

'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar' Review: Even in a Short, Wes Anderson Is Still Grand

Now available to watch on Netflix, this new short is a joyous and bite-sized delight.

Wes Anderson began his career with shorts. Four years before making his feature debut with 1996’s Bottle Rocket , the idea first started as a short starring two then-unknown actors, Owen and Luke Wilson . As Anderson’s career and ambitions have both grown, he’s often returned to shorts and always made them fascinating endeavors, whether in The Darjeeling Limited ’s prologue short film, Hotel Chevalier , the Italian film homage of Castello Cavalcanti , and even his brilliant American Express commercial .

This is what makes The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar —the first in a series of four shorts made for Netflix based on Roald Dahl stories—such a perfect project for Anderson. Not only has Anderson proven before that he’s excellent at adapting Dahl, as seen in the 2009 stop-motion animation film, Fantastic Mr. Fox , but his shorts often feel like a place where he can play and experiment, without the same pressure to make a Grand Budapest Hotel or The Royal Tenenbaums -level film—yet he still gives the story at hand the same care and consideration. Even Anderson’s 2021 anthology film, The French Dispatch , showed the director’s penchant for shorts and, given how gargantuan and intricate his films can often become, it’s a welcome change to see Anderson work in a medium that’s a bit scaled-back, but with the same level of aspiration that we’ve come to expect from his films.

Wes Anderson Is Perfect for 'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar'

At least with this first short in this project, it’s hard to imagine anyone better suited to adapt The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar . Even the structure of this short story feels perfectly Andersonian, as we begin with Roald Dahl himself (played by Ralph Fiennes ), telling the story of Henry Sugar ( Benedict Cumberbatch ), a rich, unmarried man in his 40s, who Dahl says is of a type of wealthy men who are “not particularly bad men, but they’re not good men either—they’re simply part of the decoration.” As if that wasn’t enough, Sugar finds and reads a report called “The Man Who Sees Without His Eyes” written by Dr. Z.Z. Chatterjee ( Dev Patel ), which is about, well, exactly what the title describes. Within this story, the titular man, Imdad Khan ( Ben Kingsley ), also describes his own beginnings in how he learned to gain these powers. Anderson often loves to explore this type of Inception -esque way of telling a story, which makes it all the more perfect that this all comes from Dahl’s original tale.

RELATED: ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’: Cast, Plot, Release Date, and Everything We Know About Wes Anderson’s Next Film

Throughout this story-within-a-story-within-a-story-within-a-story, Anderson plays The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar as if all his characters know they’re in a short, desperate to fit the entire tale into an agreed-upon 38 minutes. Each of these four characters narrate their own story, adding little asides and flying through Dahl’s story, almost like they’re daring Anderson to keep up with them and their rapid-fire recitation. By the end of Henry Sugar , we see how all four of these various narratives have intertwined and interwoven and left a mark on each other. The story itself might be a short, but the initiative within this tale is anything but.

Like in The French Dispatch and Anderson’s other film from this year, Asteroid City , it’s awe-inspiring to watch him throw all of his talents and styles into one story. Here, we get bits of stop-motion, animation, and a sense of humor that allows for smart, fun little camera tricks. For example, late in the film, Cumberbatch’s Henry Sugar tries on a series of disguises, and both Anderson and Cumberbatch never miss a beat in having the actor leave the frame, and return each time with an even more ridiculous costume than the last. Even having a character drive down the street with a fake background Anderson isn’t even trying to hide, or keeping one of the most rowdy scenes in the film off-screen are just some of the fun little touches that make each scene purposeful and deliberately handled.

'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar' Is Like a Perfectly Crafted Play

Yet the way Anderson handles The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar also turns him into his own version of Rushmore ’s Max Fischer—an ambitious director attempting to tell a grandiose story with an abbreviated time and smaller cast. Anderson treats each scenario like its own play, with remarkably impressive shifting sets, quick changes of makeup and costume, and his own little troupe of players, each of whom plays multiple characters throughout. We’ve always known Anderson is a master craftsman within his stories, but to watch all of this play out as quickly and efficiently as it does is nothing short of brilliant. And while it’s hard to imagine the Anderson of the Rushmore days attempting anything nearly as complex as this, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar still seems like a throwback to a more precise, more restricted story that we haven’t seen from him in quite some time. There’s no time to fill The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar with curious side characters or entertaining asides, and that brevity feels like an interesting experiment for Anderson to make at this point in his career, as the films have grown more expansive and Byzantine.

Henry Sugar also gives us even more actors who are great fits with Anderson’s specific style. Of course, Fiennes works well with Anderson, as we’ve seen in Grand Budapest Hotel , and he’s an excellent choice for Dahl, whose perfectly curated sitting nook feels directly out of a picture book. Cumberbatch is having a ball as Henry Sugar, and his performance works beautifully with Anderson’s tone. It’s also almost hard to believe that Patel and Richard Ayoade have never worked with Anderson before, but hopefully, once this project is done, this won’t be the last time. All of these actors nail the comedic timing necessary to make this short work, and again, this ends up almost like a theatre troupe working their way through what feels like an impeccably crafted play more so than anything Anderson has done thus far.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar feels like a project Anderson needed, a way to explore smaller storytelling in a manner that still allows him room to experiment, have fun, and utilize his very specific voice and talents. Anderson takes what could've been a trifle and turns it into a treasure, as even in this more compact story, he still brings an inherent grandeur to everything he touches at this point in his career. We already knew Anderson and Dahl were a perfect match, but The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar shows us that this might just be what Anderson needs right now as a filmmaker.

The Big Picture

• Wes Anderson's talent for adapting Roald Dahl's stories is evident in his previous work, such as Fantastic Mr. Fox , and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is another perfect project for him.
• Anderson's shorts provide him with a space to play and experiment, without the same pressure as his feature films, yet he still gives them the same care and consideration.
• The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar showcases Anderson's ability to seamlessly blend different storytelling techniques and his talent for creating an intricately crafted story within a short runtime.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is now available to stream on Netflix.

‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ Review: Wes Anderson Squeezes Roald Dahl Into a Delightfully Tight Short

While not quite substantial enough to support a feature, this dense adaptation of one of the 'Matilda' author's more elaborate short stories proves a good match for Anderson's intricate approach.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Instead of being a one-off, it’s just the start of a larger project, with three more Anderson-crafted Dahl adaptations — “The Swan,” “The Ratcatcher” and “Poison” — coming to Netflix in late September. “Henry Sugar” lands soon after “Asteroid City” and repeats that movie’s dizzyingly Brechtian nested-narrative approach, beginning at what appears to be the outermost layer, with Ralph Fiennes playing the author himself. Later, we’ll realize that the movie knows this is an actor appearing as Dahl, since Fiennes also fills a second role as a London bobby. With a sly meta-textual wink, Anderson acknowledges the artificiality of it all, drawing attention to the stage tricks used to jump between locations. For whatever reason, Anderson’s conceit is that the entire project is taking place in an old-timey movie studio, with rear projection, forced perspective and other devices employed for our amusement.

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No sooner has he opened the book than the voiceover shifts to one Dr. Chatterjee (Patel, also appearing in dual roles), reading his own report. A perfect addition to Anderson’s ever-expanding company of actors, Kingsley plays Kahn, a yoga-trained street magician who demonstrates his unique skill to a pair of skeptical doctors (Ayoade plays the other one). Eager to discover how Kahn managed to master this technique, Chatterjee interrogates Kahn, who next assumes narrator duties. Now four levels deep, Dahl’s “Wonderful Story” is starting to feel like “The Saragossa Manuscript,” that great matryoshka-esque puzzle, with its intricate structure of stories within stories.

Anderson permits himself to make a few improvements along the way, one of which calls for Cumberbatch (as Sugar) to become a corny master of disguise. For the sake of this review, it’s the director’s way of interpreting Dahl that proves most interesting, as he asks the project’s relatively small (but starry) cast to skip from England to India, and later all around the world, while rolling rudimentary screens on and off stage around them. At one point, the seemingly incessant narration actually falls silent, as Henry Sugar stands on his balcony and tosses a bundle of money into the street, one £20 note at a time.

How he arrives at this enlightenment and where he goes from there should surprise even Dahl’s fans (those who don’t know this story, at least), since the writer was frequently accused of putting his characters through all kinds of suffering. This tale is different, building to a happy ending — one complicated by Dahl’s assertion that, “had this been a made-up story instead of a true one, it would have been necessary to invent” a more poetic outcome. Although Anderson streamlines large swaths of the source material, he clearly delights in the needlessly complicated way Dahl delivers his fable: the layers of narration, the use of repetition, the funny strategy of telling audiences how he came by the story in the first place. Practically all that’s missing is an appearance by Anderson himself, the way Alfred Hitchcock used to present episodes of his television series. Then again, one could say he’s present in every frame.

Reviewed at Wilshire Screening Room, Aug. 23, 2023. In Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition). Running time: 40 MIN.

• Production: A Netflix release of an Indian Paintbrush presentation of an American Emperical Picture. Producers: Wes Anderson, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson.
• Crew: Director, writer: Wes Anderson, based on the story by Roald Dahl. Camera: Robert Yeoman. Editors: Barney Pilling, Andrew Weisblum. Music: Alexandre Desplat.
• With: Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend.

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Even for Wes Anderson, Netflix’s Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is a charming oddity

Roald Dahl’s short story gets the most literal, stagey movie adaptation possible

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This review of Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar comes from the film’s premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival. The film will be released later this September.

Earlier this year, Wes Anderson released the charming, melancholy Asteroid City . It bore his signature children’s pop-up book style, but in order to chip away at the hardened layers of grief, he presented his usual flourishes with uncanny restraint . His second release of 2023, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar , rushes in the opposite direction, replacing mournful silences with the nonstop rattle of narration while building exuberant layers of eye-popping façade.

A 40-minute adaptation of a 70-page story, Henry Sugar is as much Anderson’s version of the tale as it is an ode to the author, Roald Dahl. (Anderson previously adapted one of Dahl’s other children’s books, 1970’s Fantastic Mr. Fox .) In fact, Dahl’s short — part of the short-story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More — is so uniquely suited to Anderson’s sensibilities, with its multi-layered narrative and imaginative whimsy, that this project is the closest page-to-screen translation in cinema.

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That may sound like hyperbole, but the way Anderson uses Dahl’s text verges on experimental. It isn’t the basis for his script, it’s the script itself, with characters enacting the plot while narrating the prose word-for-word. They often follow their own lines of dialogue with “I said” and similar, turning briefly to the camera, as if they’re all collectively reading the story to the audience.

That idea could be misguided, but it creates a rapid-fire energy. Anderson had his cast practically memorize the entire story and deliver it in long, unbroken bursts, as they saunter between flats and painted sets that move to reveal new ones each time there story changes setting. If not for a handful of specific, pointed cuts used to emphasize poignant moments, it would feel as though the whole film were a stage production playfully shot in a single take.

While the subject of the story appears to be wealthy gambler Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch), the title is a bit of a bait-and-switch, since Henry only features prominently in the final third. The actual subject is the “wonderful story,” told by a narrator (Ralph Fiennes) who introduces Sugar just as he discovers a doctor’s journal that records the recollections of an Indian man with the mystic ability to see without his eyes. Naturally, Sugar immediately thinks about how that ability could help him win card games. Right from the outset, this structure falls perfectly in line with Anderson’s approach to several of his recent films ( The Grand Budapest Hotel , The French Dispatch , and Asteroid City ), in which a story’s telling is as vital as the story itself.

Fiennes opens the story as a reclusive writer dressed in warm, earthy tones, seated cozily in a messy cottage splattered with personal belongings. That feels like any other tableau that could have sprung forth from Anderson’s mind — with the help of production designer Adam Stockhausen and cinematographer Robert Yeoman, two of his key collaborators — but it’s based entirely on real pictures of Roald Dahl , down to the tiniest detail.

With Grand Budapest , French Dispatch, and Asteroid City , Anderson framed his movies as, respectively, a series of interviews, a symposium about newspaper articles, and a teleplay about a stage play, hopscotching across media to disguise his most emotionally impactful moments. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is a book about books, so he adapts the very act of its authorship. That bares one of the most vulnerable parts of his process up front: inspiration. The rest of the film is a mile-a-minute comedy, but it begins as a fantasy collaboration between Anderson, who began making films in 1992, and Dahl, who died in 1990.

This moving tribute quickly gives way to controlled chaos. Sugar discovers a journal belonging to Z.Z. Chatterjee (Dev Patel), an Indian doctor in pre-Independent Calcutta. (The original doctor was English, one of the few changes Anderson makes to update the material and its perspective.) Dr. Chatterjee narrates the tale of the mysterious, seemingly magical Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), who sees without sight. As each character introduces a new layer of the story (which is to say, someone else’s story, told orally or written down), the setting rapidly transforms as clearly visible stagehands wheel new backdrops on and off screen.

Most of these locations are represented by stylized matte paintings, though on occasion, the camera follows characters into an impossible third dimension, finding stages within stages where nothing should really be. It’s marvelously energetic, and it’s made all the more hilarious by the fact that some characters, like Dr. Chatterjee, function as narrators too, and are forced to split their attention between the camera, and fellow actors (like Richard Ayoade, who plays a fellow doctor).

Numerous makeup and costume changes happen on and just off screen, as Cumberbatch, Fiennes, Patel, Kingsley, and Ayoade jump between each layer of the story to fill in as minor supporting characters while disguised in heavy makeup, the way they would if this were a local stage production. (Crowds of extras are heard, but never seen.)

However, this cross-pollination of actors also speaks to the way each author seems to put a part of themselves into the tales they tell, even if they’re telling someone else’s story. Khan’s story doesn’t exist without Chatterjee, just as Chatterjee’s doesn’t exist without Sugar, and Sugar’s doesn’t exist without the nameless Dahl stand-in. It’s a fun game of “spot the star,” but also an expression of an artistic mission statement. Anderson’s distinctly recognizable style — easily imitated, but never replicated — is the way he puts himself into his stories.

Try as they might to imitate Anderson, people using AI tools to ape him or making TikTok or YouTube videos in his style lack both Anderson’s depth of influences (from Dahl, or from filmmakers like Satyajit Ray ) and the ability to synthesize those inspirations into a uniquely personal, uniquely cinematic vision. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is slavishly adherent to its source material, but that aspect of its creation is a vital peek into Anderson’s creative process, depicting what may have been, in all likelihood, his own experience of reading the story and imagining his own version of it. It’s a short film, but its portrayal of inspiration, self-evident in both its artistry and homage, is simply enormous.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar debuts on Netflix Sept. 27.

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The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar review: Wes Anderson’s Netflix debut is pure loveliness

The oscar-winner has teamed with netflix in a marriage of convenience to adapt four roald dahl stories debuting over four days this week – and the first is an ideal companion to his recent feature films, article bookmarked.

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This week, Wes Anderson will debut four new short films over four days, each adapted from lesser-known stories by Roald Dahl , whose work he has previously tackled in 2009’s Fantastic Mr Fox . Since Netflix acquired the Roald Dahl Story Company in 2021, for the princely sum of $686m (£564m), the shorts will debut directly on the streaming service – The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar first, followed by The Swan , The Ratcatcher , and then Poison . Anderson has described the deal as more of a marriage of convenience than anything else.

At 39 minutes, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the longest of the quartet. And it makes for an ideal companion to the director’s previous two films, Asteroid City and The French Dispatch . Written by Dahl in 1977, it concerns a wealthy, ineffectual man by the name of Henry (Benedict Cumberbatch). He discovers a notebook, written by a Dr Chatterjee (Dev Patel), that details his encounter with Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), otherwise known as “The Man Who Could See Without Using His Eyes”. Many believe that Dahl wrote the story as a gentle rebuke to the critics who would chastise his macabre and cynical inclinations – Henry, at first, covets Khan’s powers in order to improve his hand at cards. Yet, his greed isn’t punished but absolved by a greater purpose.

Anderson’s adaptation seems to conceal its own (conscious or subconscious) rebuke. For every sincere admirer of his work, now there is an Instagram filter or viral AI prompt ready to denigrate his craft. So perhaps it’s no coincidence that the director has found himself increasingly drawn to material that celebrates the labour behind storytelling: the journalists who narrate their pieces to the audience in The French Dispatch , or the actors and writers behind the play-inside-a-television-show that constitutes Asteroid City .

Here, in the lovely, immaculate, and extremely faithful The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar , we’re first introduced to Dahl himself. He’s played by Ralph Fiennes, slightly slumped in his posture, but rigorous in his routine – a natural ancestor of Anderson’s. He sets out his writing board, paper, and pencil. He makes a few swift edits. Then, he introduces us to Henry, who introduces us to Dr Chatterjee, who, in turn, introduces us to Imdad.

Each of them tells their story, in the galloping clip of an explorer presenting their discovery. They deliver Dahl’s prose almost entirely untouched, with all the “I said”s and passages of descriptive language intact. At one point, Dr Chatterjee tells us that “two minutes pass”. He takes a short breath, and immediately continues on.

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There’s no illusion of reality here, no detachment from the storyteller and the story. In every single moment of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar , we are reminded that this is a product of human imagination, brought into being by human hands. Anderson makes use of animation, claymation, miniatures, painted backgrounds, and back-projection. His actors (the short also features Richard Ayoade, as Dr Chatterjee’s assistant) play multiple roles, working like a theatre troupe.

When Imdad’s eyes are covered up in order to test his powers of sight, the bandage arrives pre-wrapped, popped on like a helmet. When he levitates, he simply rotates a small box, painted to blend into the scene’s jungle backdrop, and sits on it. At other times, well-dressed stagehands silently emerge from the wings, as they rearrange props, pop open windows, and drag actors across the stage. Anderson even allows his shots to occasionally extend beyond the edges of his backdrops, so that his frames become littered with stage lights and wires. He wants us to see the artifice, so that when Dahl’s simple but effective tale of seeing the world in unexpected ways concludes, we’re reminded that fiction can often feel more true to us than life.

Dir: Wes Anderson. Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Rupert Friend, Richard Ayoade. PG, 39 minutes.

‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ streams on Netflix from Wednesday 27 September, followed in successive days by ‘The Swan’, ‘The Ratcatcher’ and ‘Poison’

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‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ Review: Wes Anderson’s Hyper-Faithful Roald Dahl Adaptation Is 37 Minutes of Absolute Bliss

David ehrlich.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. Netflix releases the film in select theaters on Wednesday, September 20, and it will be available to stream on Netflix on Wednesday, September 27.

On the matter of fidelity, there can be no question. Running 37 minutes long at a full sprint from the moment it starts, “Henry Sugar” recites Dahl’s text almost completely verbatim. It starts, as all movies should, with Ralph Fiennes muttering to himself in a miniature recreation of Dahl’s study (I never really begrudged Anderson for being inspired by an anti-Semite, but even less so now that he’s cast Amon Göth to play him). And then, as if silently cued by God above or suddenly possessed by an invisible spirit, Dahl turns to the camera and begins reciting the story at a breathless clip. 

Somehow, production designer Adam Stockhausen’s diorama-like sets manage to keep up with Dahl’s words. As the author speed-talks at us about a self-inflating London aristocrat named Henry Sugar (what are the odds?), Dahl’s cabin lifts into the sky on a pair of wires to reveal a fabulous series of movable backdrops and modular props that are wheeled in and out of frame at will. 

And so the stage is set for the most visually inventive film that Anderson has made thus far, one whose in-your-face theatricality and manic bricolage of nested subplots are so aggressive that even the recent “ Asteroid City ” — with its movie about a television program about a play within a play “about infinity and I don’t know what else” construction — feels measured by comparison. So while “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” may be, in some respects, the most literal Dahl adaptation you could possibly imagine, the true author of this project is never in doubt. 

Like “Asteroid City” before it, “Henry Sugar” overtly explores how storytelling can serve as an avenue towards life’s greatest truths, but where that movie was preoccupied with finding solace in the unknown, this one hinges on using artifice to see through all the bullshit. If Dahl’s story was a rebuttal to all the critics who accused him of being too mean, Anderson’s film is an unambiguous middle finger to anyone who thinks his stuff is all style and no substance.

But the style here sure is outrageous, as the hermetic nature of Dahl’s plot gives Anderson the chance to make something that has no grounding in reality. There isn’t any “now” in “Henry Sugar,” nor a single moment when its story exists apart from its telling. All five of the film’s actors play multiple roles, and even the most dramatic changes of scenery are seamlessly accomplished with a simple move of Robert Yeoman’s camera, which dollies right just in time for Dahl to pass the narrator’s baton to Mr. Sugar himself (Anderson newcomer Benedict Cumberbatch, a natural addition to the filmmaker’s troupe). 

With all the players introduced, “Henry Sugar” is free to embrace the full extent of its theatricality, and Anderson in turn invited to go totally off the leash. We’re talking dioramas, rear-projection, an on-screen stagehand, and a fetishistic degree of pleasure taken in all of the literary quirks that film adaptations exist to avoid. 

Dahl’s text is elided somewhat, but the parts that remain are read word-for-word, down to each individual “he said” (imagine listening to the best-performed audio book you’ve ever heard played at 4x speed). When Ayoade tells us that his character’s “whole face was rigid with shocked disbelief,” he then turns to flash the camera what that expression might look like. That kind of breakneck cleverness proves typical of a short that takes every sentence as a personal challenge to do something fun with it. 

I’ll leave you with a telling passage about Khan’s circus act: 

“The audience loves it. They applaud long and loud. But not one single person believes it to be genuine. Everyone thinks it is just another clever trick. And the fact that I am a conjurer makes them think more than ever that I am faking. Conjurers are men who trick you. They trick you with cleverness. And so no one believes me. Even the doctors who blindfold me in the most expert way refuse to believe that anyone can see with out his eyes. They forget there may be other ways of sending the image to the brain.” 

They may forget, but Anderson never has.

“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. Netflix will release it in select theaters on Wednesday, September 20, and it will be available to stream on Netflix starting Wednesday, September 27.

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The wonderful story of henry sugar, common sense media reviewers.

Uplifting story-based fantasy has some smoking, death.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Kids can talk about the unique challenges and oppo

It's possible, through discipline and practice, to

Wealthy men are said to be "not bad men, but not g

Wes Anderson is a White male filmmaker making a mo

A man has a scar from being hit with a stone. A ma

The film could inspire interest in Roald Dahl's or

Parents need to know that The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is director Wes Anderson's adaptation of Roald Dahl's short story. The 40-minute film has some smoking and death (by natural causes), but its messages are overwhelmingly positive, with characters who learn to control their minds and their more…

Educational Value

Kids can talk about the unique challenges and opportunities of adapting a book or short story to film. They can also talk about some of the techniques used in this movie to make it appear like characters are on a stage.

Positive Messages

It's possible, through discipline and practice, to train yourself to center and control the mind. This can lead to an overcoming of base and selfish pursuits. A good life that brings peace is one spent serving others. The nurturing of talents and skills also requires effort and discipline.

Positive Role Models

Wealthy men are said to be "not bad men, but not good men either," and have an "insatiable longing" to acquire more and more wealth. However, one character learns self-control and discovers that wealth can't buy peace or happiness; when he's called "spoiled" for not grasping the hardships of others, he dedicates his life to helping the needy by building orphanages and hospitals. A pair of doctors want to learn from a man whose talents they believe could help others.

Diverse Representations

Wes Anderson is a White male filmmaker making a movie based on a book written by a White male author. The film stars an all-British cast, including two of Gujarati Indian descent and another of Nigerian heritage. The story takes place between London, England, and Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. An Indian yogi teaches the art of concentrating the mind. There are no female characters with spoken lines in the film. There are some stereotypes inherent in the mid-20th-century tale involving a wise yogi levitating in the Indian jungle (and mention of circus acts like snake charmers and sword-swallowers).

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

A man has a scar from being hit with a stone. A man is said to die in his sleep; his brother died at age 10. Another man also dies from natural causes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

The film could inspire interest in Roald Dahl's original book and other Wes Anderson films.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is director Wes Anderson 's adaptation of Roald Dahl's short story. The 40-minute film has some smoking and death (by natural causes), but its messages are overwhelmingly positive, with characters who learn to control their minds and their more selfish impulses. The film stars an all-British cast ( Ralph Fiennes , Benedict Cumberbatch , Ben Kinglsey , and Dev Patel ), including two actors of Gujarati Indian descent and another of Nigerian heritage. The story takes place between London, England, and Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. An Indian yogi teaches the art of concentrating the mind. There are no female characters with spoken lines, and the portrayal of a wise yogi levitating in the Indian jungle (and mention of circus acts like snake charmers and sword-swallowers) strays into stereotype territory. Note: In some cases, this film is in a group that includes other shorts. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (2)
• Kids say (5)

Based on 2 parent reviews

A nice vibe.

What's the story.

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENREY SUGAR is several stories within one narrated by their authors. A writer ( Ralph Fiennes ) tells the tale of Henry Sugar ( Benedict Cumberbatch ), a man whose life is changed by a story he reads in an old journal by a Dr. Chaterjee ( Dev Patel ) of Calcutta. Chaterjee recounts his encounter with a man ( Ben Kinglsey ) who learned to see without using his eyes. It's a skill Sugar realizes he can use to his own benefit, and he sets out to master the technique. He doesn't realize all that he will learn and gain in the process.

Is It Any Good?

This short film tells a deceptively joyful tale and will delight fans of the master stylist Wes Anderson. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar features Cumberbatch, Kingsley, Fiennes, and Patel in multiple roles offering a rapid-fire telling of the several stories-within-stories included in the classic Roald Dahl short tale. It's Anderson's second Dahl adaptation after Fantastic Mr. Fox . Henry Sugar is indeed wonderful, despite the ultra-serious delivery of the actors and the whiff of exoticism inherent in the mid-twentieth-century tale involving a wise yogi levitating in the Indian jungle (and mention of circus acts like snake-charmers and sword-swallowers).

Grown men learning to forego their egocentric desires is not the stuff of many Netflix releases. Anderson handles the themes gently. He places characters in his inimitable style within moving set pieces designed in a faded coral and blue color palette. They speak to camera, reciting written scripts including stage directions. If Dahl's original work offered a peek into the writing process, Anderson's retelling does the same for the staging process. Characters wander in and out of frame, sometimes changing costumes in between, sometimes aided by crewmen. The actors are splendid one and all, and it's lovely to see the talented Patel share a "stage" with these other powerhouse veterans.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the main messages of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. What did you take away from the story? What lessons were applicable to your own life?

Director Wes Anderson has a very particular style. What aspects did you notice about the way this movie looked and was filmed that are different from other films? If you have seen other Anderson movies, which did this most remind you of? Do you like his style? Why or why not?

Some people find the rapid-fire reels of TikTok or Instagram to be a good length for watching videos, and other people prefer 2- to 3-hour movies. This film is 40 minutes long. What is your preferred length for watching visual stories? Why?

Have you read the story this film is based on? What can a movie do that a book or short story cannot, and vice versa?

How do various characters in the film learn and demonstrate self-control ? What benefits do they derive from this?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : September 27, 2023
• Cast : Benedict Cumberbatch , Ben Kingsley , Ralph Fiennes
• Director : Wes Anderson
• Inclusion Information : Indian/South Asian actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Fantasy
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Book Characters
• Character Strengths : Self-control
• Run time : 40 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : smoking
• Award : Academy Award
• Last updated : March 11, 2024

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Wes Anderson’s ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ Is Barely a Movie — and One of His Best

By David Fear

The golden rule is usually, “Show, don’t tell.” And Wes Anderson is a filmmaker who — judging by the overly meticulous mise-en-scène, the highly mannered methods of his storytelling, the obsessive curating and compulsive footnoting of onscreen bric-a-brac — seems to love the structure that comes with obeying unwritten rules. All the better to break them occasionally, of course, or to at least modify your parameters in a way that suits both the material and your signature. There’s a lot of the expected Westhetic going on in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, with enough symmetrical frames full of information and perfectly centered characters speaking as if their tongues were married to their cheeks. It’s undeniably his movie, brimming with a style so recognizable as to be easily parodied .

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There’s still the feeling that you’re watching an artist play with giant dollhouses — or, we guess, Dahl-houses — in this first of four shorts based on the author’s literary tidbits. But his embracing of a literal interpretation of the text, attributions and all, as well as doling this out in a single brief portion instead of part of an anthology, keeps things not just short but sharp. For all of its ragged shagginess, Dahl’s story is honed down to a fine point. Anderson pays homage by sticking to the script word for word.

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And this is most assuredly a movie about storytelling, more so than the idle rich, the spiritually transcendent, and the illicit thrill of a busted blackjack hand. You see the stage hands move players on dolly tracks, and one-dimensional sets are moved in and out. Each of the name actors play multiple parts (and will apparently do so in the three other companion shorts; Anderson said he envisioned, Cumberbatch, Patel et al. as the equivalent of a rep theater troupe for the entire quartet). At one point, Benedict helps Sir Ben change his wig onscreen, and waits for him to come back into the frame. There are so many tales nestled inside of tales nestled inside of other tales that the only logical response is to think: Scheherazade wept.

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• User reviews

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Chronicles a variety of stories, but the main one follows Henry Sugar, who is able to see through objects and predict the future with the help of a book he stole. Chronicles a variety of stories, but the main one follows Henry Sugar, who is able to see through objects and predict the future with the help of a book he stole. Chronicles a variety of stories, but the main one follows Henry Sugar, who is able to see through objects and predict the future with the help of a book he stole.

• Wes Anderson
• Ralph Fiennes
• Benedict Cumberbatch
• 153 User reviews
• 84 Critic reviews
• 85 Metascore
• 1 win & 2 nominations total

• Roald Dahl …

• Henry Sugar …

• Dr. Chatterjee …

• Imdad Khan …

• Dr. Marshall …

• Canasta Player …

• Casino Croupier
• Casino Guest
• (as Christopher Long)

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia In a 2023 interview with Deadline, Wes Anderson spoke about how Ralph Fiennes got into the character of Roald Dahl : "In our house, we have a recording of Dahl reading Fantastic Mr. Fox. He did record himself doing quite a few of [his books]. There's also a reasonable amount of documentary stuff about Dahl. In fact, when we started filming Henry Sugar, Ralph was on set, in the little space that's a recreation of Dahl's workspace, and I could hear him talking to himself. I said, 'Tell me what you're saying.' It turned out that he'd been observing Dahl from the archival stuff I'd sent him, and he knew Dahl's little rituals. He was acting them out on his own, just in preparation. And I was like, 'Start over, start over! We'll film this!' And so, the movie begins with Ralph completely improvising. Every take was a bit different, because it's Ralph just sort of channeling Dahl getting ready to write. Ralph is so interesting and authentic."
• Goofs Starting around 22:00 as the cuts go back and forth between front angle cuts and side angle cuts; the orientation of how Roald Dahl is holding the cigarette changes.

Henry Sugar : I didn't do anything illegal, did I?

Policeman : Illegal?

Policeman : [screams] YOU'RE AN IDIOT!

• Connections Edited into The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2024)
• Soundtracks Cosi Fan Tutte, K. 588, Act I Scene 2: No. 10, Terlettino Soave Sia il Vento (Dorabella, Don Alfonso, Fiordiligi) Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Arrangement by Jonathon Rathbone Performed by The Swingles (as The Swingle Singers) Courtesy of Erato/Warner Classics, Warner Music UK Ltd By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing

User reviews 153

• Sep 27, 2023
• September 27, 2023 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Film Sözlük
• Official Netflix
• The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
• London, England, UK
• American Empirical Pictures
• Indian Paintbrush
• Netflix Studios
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 40 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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• DVD & Streaming

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

• Action/Adventure , Comedy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Benedict Cumberbatch as Henry Sugar; Ralph Fiennes as Roald Dahl; Ben Kingsley as Imdad Khan; Dev Patel as Dr. Chatterjee/John Winston; Richard Ayoade as Dr. Marshall/Yogi

Home Release Date

• September 27, 2023
• Wes Anderson

Distributor

Movie review.

Roald Dahl has a story for you. It’s a wonderful story, really, about a man named Henry Sugar.

You see, at 41 years old, Henry Sugar had lived a life of limitless wealth and luxury. He had inherited his father’s riches, and he had never worked a day in his life. He drifted about without a care in the world, looking for fun things to satiate his boredom.

But while Henry Sugar was not a good nor a bad man, he did have one desire: to make himself even richer. And one of the few ways a man can attempt that without having to work for it is by gambling.

But one day, Henry Sugar stumbles across another wonderful story. The story he found was about Imdad Khan, “The Man Who Sees Without His Eyes.” This story told, as you might expect, of a man who learned to see things without even having to open his eyes. He could even see through things to look at that which is normally hidden … things like playing cards.

“Oh, and what an easy way to earn money that would be!” Henry Sugar likely thought to himself. And so Henry Sugar sets off to learn just how to see without using his eyes so that he can win millions at the poker table.

But the thing about seeing in new ways is that it has the tendency to change your perspective on things.

Positive Elements

Henry Sugar does learn how to see without his eyes. His ability to earn money at various casinos works! But when Henry returns home to his London flat, he is somewhat disgusted with himself. For one thing, there was no thrill or difficulty in obtaining the money. For another, his ability to gain theoretically unlimited cash has made him realize just how pointless his greed is. Whether he earns five quid or five million, it’s all just another drop in the bucket for a man who isn’t struggling whatsoever.

That’s why Henry decides to throw the money off his balcony to the people below. And still, he sees how the love of money causes those people to riot for the falling pounds. He’s set straight by a police officer, who rebukes Henry for being so frivolous with his money. So he decides to use the money he gets with his powers responsibly by setting up hospitals and orphanages around the world.

The moral of this story reminds viewers of how greed is ultimately a fruitless endeavor. It calls to mind biblical principles about how money is a root of all sorts of evil and the dangers of overindulgence. We’re shown that Henry Sugar’s original goals to make a fortune for himself would have ultimately led to an unfulfilled life. But because he used his money to help those in need, he’s left a better impact on the world and passed away satisfied with his life.

Spiritual Elements

Henry’s power, we learn, originated from a yogi in India. Yogi are practitioners of yoga in connection to the Hindu religion’s meditational practice. The man is seen levitating over his prayer mat while he prays. He tells Imdad a secret regarding the ability to see without eyes, which corresponds with much of the “emptying your mind” style teaching of Eastern religion:

“The mind is a scattered thing. It concerns itself with thousands of different items at once … You must learn to concentrate your mind in such a way that you can visualize at will one item—one item only—and absolutely nothing else.”

The yogi also says that certain “holy people” have been known to develop so great a concentration that they are able to see without using their eyes, since the seeing is done by “another part of the body.”

After Imdad learns this practice, he says that the teaching has helped him make a lot of money through “conjuring performances.”

Henry also learns how to do this style of meditation.

Sexual Content

Henry takes a bath, and we see him shirtless.

At one point, Henry swaps in and out of various costumes and accents; one such costume is a dress in which he speaks in a feminine fashion.

Violent Content

A man points to the scar he’s obtained after another person hit him with a rock. After Henry throws money off his balcony, we hear the people below angrily fighting for the cash.

Crude or Profane Language

Henry is called an “idiot” twice. Someone exclaims, “What the devil do you think you’re doing!?”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Some people smoke cigars or cigarettes. People drink alcohol.

Other Negative Elements

Henry uses his newfound ability to cheat at gambling games.

No, Henry Sugar doesn’t own a chocolate factory or a giant peach, but he’s got a big story of his own.

Wes Anderson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar takes us almost completely verbatim through the classic tale of the wealthy man who learns to see without his eyes. During this 40-minute Netflix short feature, we hear some messages about generosity and finding joy in helping others.

At times, the film feels a bit speedy, as if some characters are trying to get their lines out as quickly as possible before Anderson’s unique directing style literally rolls the scene out from under them. But perhaps that’s part of how the movie means to whisk viewers away in a fantastical, fast-paced story within a story within a story.

The biggest concern parents might have from this tale is due to Henry Sugar’s mystical X-ray vision being the result of meditation paired with Eastern spiritualism. But as fantastical as the rest of the story is, it won’t be too big of a stretch for families to apply the same label to that, too. And perhaps, even, to talk about different world religions and some of the core beliefs they emphasize.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s character ultimately learns (and teaches) of how a love of money ultimately will lead to an unfulfilling life. And so while this short feature’s content issues might not live up to “wonderful,” the story is still pretty good.

Kennedy Unthank

Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ on Netflix, A New Wes Anderson Short, Adapting a Roald Dahl Tale

Where to stream:.

• The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

• Wes Anderson

Why Did Wes Anderson Skip The Oscars 2024? ‘Henry Sugar’ Director Snubs Oscars Despite Win

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2023 is shaping up to be Wes Anderson’s most productive year yet: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the first of four short films the beloved idiosyncratist – is that a word? It should be – made for Netflix, all based on stories by Roald Dahl , and debuting on consecutive days. The other three? In order of their release, The Swan , The Rat Catcher and Poison , and all four films feature Ralph Fiennes as Dahl himself, with Ben Kingsley, Richard Ayoade and Benedict Cumberbatch cast in various roles. And all those films arrive on the heels of perhaps his most ambitious narrative yet, Asteroid City , which debuted earlier in the year, and shares a nesting-doll structure with Henry Sugar , the layers of which we’ll peel back and examine a bit right now.

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s easy to imagine that the hut in which Roald Dahl (Fiennes) works was designed by Wes Anderson, even though he wasn’t around to do it. So it makes sense that Anderson does imagine it as he does here, as a quaint little stone building where Dahl sat in a cushioned chair with a lapboard, surrounded by various meticulously arranged comfort items ranging from chocolates and pencils to various gewgaws and knickknacks. Dahl speaks directly to us as his environment shifts around him like a theatre production, and he tells the story of Henry Sugar (Cumberbatch), here described as a rich man who was afflicted with the rich person’s disease, which is an obsession with attaining more money than the very much money he already has, because because more than he needs still will never ever be enough. He also liked to gamble.

One day Henry Sugar found himself in a room full of books, one of which stuck out among the carefully curated collection of leatherback tomes. He opens it and now takes on the role of narrator as he reads the story of Imdad Khan (Kingsley), a man who could see without using his eyes. This, of course, was an extraordinary skill. We take the perspective of two curious and fascinated doctors (Patel and Ayoade) as Khan tells a story within the story within the story within the story about how he learned intense meditation and visualization exercises from a yogi, and practiced and practiced and practiced for years and years until he could not only thoroughly cover his face and easily navigate cluttered hallways and stairwells, but also could use this skill to determine the identity of a playing card simply by looking at the back of it. The latter bit piqued Henry Sugar’s interest, because if there’s a way to acquire ever more money than ever before, it’s by learning to see without his eyes and then going to casinos and cheating at blackjack. So that’s what he does, but one soon gets the sense that Henry Sugar might’ve found a way to see inside himself, too.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Need I remind you that Anderson’s other Dahl adaptation, Fantastic Mr. Fox , might be his best film? (It is at the very least my favorite among his filmography.)

Performance Worth Watching: You’re asking me to choose between Fiennes and Kingsley. Please don’t. Masters, both of them, especially with this type of exquisitely modulated material. 

Memorable Dialogue: A typically deadpan-Anderson take on death: “He went to sleep and never woke up. These things happen,” Dahl says.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: I haven’t done adequate service to Anderson’s work, which is as meticulously curio as ever from a visual standpoint. He uses a variety of clever visual tricks – practical effects and/or animation, and/or animation that resembles practical effects; not knowing exactly how he did it is part of the joy of watching it – to change environments around his characters as they speak. Lighting and backgrounds and foregrounds shift and morph like a shrewdly designed stage play, but you’ll never criticize the film as being “stagey,” since the narrative sprawls over many years and a couple of countries and exhibits an ambition to enliven Dahl’s tale for the visual medium in a manner that enhances his playful, thoughtful storytelling. There’s even a moment when Imdad tells a story and the visual cue for a flashback finds Cumberbatch-as-Henry-Sugar helping him replace his eyebrows and hairpiece for those of a less aged man. And you can’t help but laugh.

Which is to say Anderson enhances Dahl’s parable in endearing and meaningful ways. His characters read Dahl’s prose directly at us in typically Andersonesque stony, ratatat fashion, double quotation marks surrounding single quotation marks surrounding double quotation marks, peering at the blurry barriers between fact and fiction (“Had this been a made-up story instead of a true one,” Henry Sugar says at one point without a single wink or nudge, inspiring our bemusement) until he arrives at the true heart of Henry Sugar, which is, of course, ultimately, rather sweet, and inspiring in the simple life lesson it holds, about selflessness and generosity. Anderson does a lot more in Henry Sugar ’s 37 minutes than many filmmakers do in 137, and makes sure the film is only as long as it needs to be, not that anyone’s counting. It moves so quickly you may just find yourself watching the end credits and then immediately starting the film over again.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Wes Anderson keeps getting more and more Wes Andersony, love it or hate it. And may the deities help you if you hate it.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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The Wonderful World Of Henry Sugar Movie Review: Benedict Cumberbatch Film Is An Andersonian Tale For All Ages

Updated Oct 4, 2023, 08:30 IST

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Wes Anderson Finally Found a Way Into His New Roald Dahl Film

For years, the director puzzled over an adaptation of “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.” Then he let the characters say things they weren’t meant to.

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By Kyle Buchanan

Fifteen years ago, while the director Wes Anderson was adapting Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” into a stop-motion animated film, the author’s widow, Felicity, asked whether he saw cinematic potential in any of Dahl’s other tales. One came immediately to Anderson’s mind: “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” a short Dahl published in 1977 about a wealthy gambler who learns a secret meditation technique that allows him to see through playing cards.

Many filmmakers had inquired about adapting “Henry Sugar” over the years, but Dahl’s family was happy to set it aside for Anderson. There was just one problem.

“I never knew how to do it,” he said.

The 54-year-old filmmaker typically works at a prodigious pace, putting out distinctive comedies like the recent “ Asteroid City ” and “ The French Dispatch ” (2021) every two or three years. But he has spent nearly half his career trying to crack “Henry Sugar.” The breakthrough finally came when Anderson decided to use more than just Dahl’s dialogue and plotting: He would also lift the author’s descriptive prose and put it in the mouths of the characters, allowing them to narrate their own actions into the camera as they happen.

“I just didn’t see a way for me to do it that isn’t in his personal voice,” Anderson explained. “The way he tells the story is part of what I like about it.”

The result is a 40-minute short starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade, with a delicious assist from Ralph Fiennes as Dahl. After premiering at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, “Henry Sugar” will be released Wednesday on Netflix, followed by three more Anderson-helmed Dahl shorts — “The Swan,” “The Rat Catcher” and “Poison” — that employ the same actors and meta conceit of using Dahl’s prose in dialogue.

(That prose has been under a microscope of late because of a plan by Dahl’s publisher to edit out language that was deemed offensive, some of which reflected the author’s racist views . “I don’t want even the artist to modify their work,” Anderson said when asked about it at a Venice news conference. “I understand the motivation for it, but I sort of am in the school where when the piece of work is done and the audience participates in it, I sort of think what’s done is done. And certainly, no one besides the author should be modifying the work — he’s dead.”)

I spoke to Anderson about his Dahl projects in Venice. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

When you read Dahl as a child, you feel like he’s telling you things another adult wouldn’t. While watching your characters say Dahl’s prose directly into the camera, I felt that same conspiratorial connection again.

Oh, that’s good. And yeah, every kid who experiences it has that same thing. There’s mischief in every Dahl story, and the voice of the writer is very strong. Also, there was always a picture of him in these books, so I was very aware of him and the list of all his children: He lives in a place called Gipsy House, and he’s got Ophelia and Lucy and Theo. Do you know about his writing hut?

I didn’t until I watched “Henry Sugar,” but it looks like you recreated part of Dahl’s house for the scenes in which Ralph Fiennes plays him.

When I made “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and I was working on the script, we stayed at the house for some time. In those days, that writing hut was still filled with his things and left the way he had it. [ Dahl died in 1990 .] There was a table with all these sort of talismans, little items laid out, which I think he just liked to have next to him when he was writing. He had this ball that looks like a shot put, made of the foil wrappers of these chocolates he would eat every day. He’d had a hip replacement, and one of the talismans was his original hip bone. And there was a hole cut in the back of his armchair because he had a bad back. It is odd to have somebody write in a way that’s sort of cinematic.

You grew up imagining Dahl and the place he lived. How did it feel to stay there?

It was a dazzling thing. It’s the house of somebody who has a very strong sense of how he wants things to be.

Something I’m sure you can’t relate to it all as a director.

No. [ Laughs ] I remember the dinner table, a great big table with normal chairs, but at the end of it is an armchair — not a normal thing at a dinner table — with a telephone, a little cart with pencils and notebooks, some stacked books. Essentially, “You can all eat here, and this is where I sit and have everything I want.” Also, he bought art and he had a good eye. I remember there’s a portrait of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon next to a portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud. The place is filled with interesting things to look at.

It sounds like the kind of set I might expect to see in a Wes Anderson film, filled with these totems and details.

Things that are about a character. Yeah, and he’s quite a character.

As you thought about adapting “Henry Sugar” over the last decade and a half, did that give you time to figure out why you were so drawn to it?

I always loved the nested aspect of it. I do these nested things in my movies starting with “Grand Budapest,” but I think it possibly comes from “Henry Sugar.”

Another thing that you carry over from recent works is the idea of theatrical artifice: You want the viewer to see how this story is put together, and even the walls of the set are wheeled in and pulled apart. What draws you to that approach?

When you watch a movie, generally you’re seeing someone try to create an illusion of something happening, because in fact right off the frame is a light and a guy with a microphone. But for me, the theatrical devices really happen. So I think to some degree, I like the authenticity that a theatrical approach can bring. It’s a way to tell the story where there’s a little sliver of the documentary in it, even though most of what we’re doing is the exact opposite of a documentary.

And the viewer feels along for the ride, especially in some of the long takes that have a lot of choreography .

On the set there’s so much to wrangle, but when it all starts to happen, it is quite a great thing to sit down and say, “Wow, look at that, 90 seconds of the movie is happening right in front of us right now.” Every time with complicated shots that have tricky staging and lots of things for actors to do, there’s usually the feeling that this may not work, that what needs to happen here may never occur. So it’s always this great relief as you see it evolve and say, “No, we’re getting there and they’re going to do it.”

When they nail one of those tricky long shots, what feeling do you have?

“Next!” That’s usually what it is.

You don’t allow yourself even a moment to exult in the perfect take?

There’s a little moment of, “Ooh, that was a good one.” Then, “OK, so do we do lunch? Or we could set up [the next shot] and then eat.” That sort of thing.

In your recent movies, you’ve had very large ensemble casts . Why did you decide to tackle all these Dahl stories with such a small troupe?

I thought we’ll do just English actors, and I had people in mind who I already knew and some people who I wanted to work with, so it’s not an unfamiliar group. But the idea of doing it as a little theater company, in the writing part of it I started thinking, “Maybe we’ll do the thing they do on the stage sometimes, where someone’s playing this role, but also this and this .”

You’ve said that you tried to work with Dev Patel in the past, and this is the first time he said yes. What had you offered him before?

Well, I don’t like to say, because then the actor who was in it says, “Oh, I wasn’t the first choice?” But I love Dev, and in this thing, Dev is the youngest of them, so he has an advantage when it comes to paragraphs or pages of text. If you work with people at different ages and you’re giving them a lot to do, you can see how it really is so much easier when you’re young: On “Moonrise Kingdom,” we had a lot of people who were 12 and they knew every word of the whole script. It was like we had 11 script supervisors on set.

As a precocious American kid reading Dahl, you might wonder what it would be like to live overseas. Now that you’re based in Paris, have you become the person that you imagined in your mind’s eye?

My experience is you stay yourself and you realize, “Oh, I guess I will always be a foreigner.” Which is not a bad thing, but I can’t say I’ve ever felt like now I pass. I am a Texan. Even if I’m living in New York or in Los Angeles, where I’m from is Houston. It’s built into my identity. I think if you’re from a city where you might want to live, or near it, then you have a different thing: Like Noah Baumbach, he has a deep life in New York that goes back all the way to the beginning of his life and generations of family connections and all that stuff. For me, New York is just the friends I made.

Growing up within a small perimeter is probably quite different from growing up with a big, big view of the world. I hadn’t really spent much time outside of my little territory until I was in my 20s.

Is it gratifying to have your perimeter so much larger now?

Yes. It’s an adventure to be able to say, “Well, I’m going to have breakfast in the cafe over here that I just know from movies up until a certain age.” That is fun. It’s definitely entertaining to live abroad, even if it is a bit isolating.

Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and serves as The Projectionist , the awards season columnist for The Times. He is the author of “Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road.” More about Kyle Buchanan

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