Wes Anderson: How TikTokers are giving their lives the US director's film treatment

Homemade Wes Anderson-style videos have had millions of views on TikTok

Life has been imitating art online, after TikTokers started a trend for posting snippets of their everyday routines in the style of Wes Anderson.

The US director is known for his quirky style and pastel-coloured aesthetic, as seen in films like the Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch.

Now, people have been adopting his idiosyncratic approach to show themselves at work, shopping or eating.

Ava Williams claimed she started the trend at the end of a family holiday.

Ava Williams started the trend, posting a video of a sad-looking train journey at the end of a family holiday

"I was inspired to make the video after watching The French Dispatch with my parents the night before," the 26-year-old TikTok user told Newsweek.

"I was going back to New York after a very short visit with my family and I was sad that I was leaving so soon."

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She added: "I didn't want to really end my trip on such a sad note so I was hoping to make the most out of a situation that wasn't totally ideal."

Her video, posted on 8 April, contained Anderson-esque cinematography and storytelling, including mainly still, straight-on camera shots and on-screen scene descriptions, as well as his signature use of jaunty music - namely Alexandre Desplat's track Obituary.

It has received more than 12 million views and inspired many others to follow suit by posting similar videos detailing the location, date and time, before stylishly showing themselves in a range of of situations.

They have included Keith Afadi's lunch date at a central London burger restaurant, filmed through an Anderson-like lens, which also proved popular with the masses.

Ukranian-born Valeria Shashenok used the same format to draw attention to the destruction caused by the war in her country.

"Inspired by a girl on TikTok who made a video about her train trip, I decided to make something like she, but about war consequences that happen everyday," she wrote.

In the UK, in the past seven days alone, there have been nine million searches and 46,000 posts using a Wes Anderson hashtag.

The trend, which Williams labelled "You better not be acting like you're in a Wes Anderson film", has now made its way around the world and on to BBC Two's Newsnight on Tuesday.

Kirsty Walk, who presents the current affairs show, appeared in a sketch titled The Life Journalistic - a nod to another Anderson title, The Life Aquatic - which showed her going about her reporting business but with added eccentricity.

Former TV presenter Michael Barrymore also got in on the act, showing himself in west London "with nothing to do" - in other words, making a cup of tea and a fry-up before visiting the laundrette and an art gallery.

While most people seem to be having fun with it, more stern critics have been irked by how many have been getting Wes wrong.

Articles have popped up advising have-a-go auteurs to use more earthy tones and vintage clothing, for example.

Esquire's Tom Nicholson noted that while the newly popular exercise in "romanticising an afternoon of your life into an arch, cute, immaculately production designed fantasy" could be a nice way to spread the word about his work, for the most part they "don't look very much at all like a Wes Anderson film".

"The colours don't have that vivid strangeness, while at the same time making you think it might be nice to have the bathroom redone like that," he wrote.

Director Wes Anderson (second left) with French Dispatch stars Timothee Chalamet, Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray

He added: "The cuts are way too quick. There's nowhere near enough use of [the font] Futura. And they're not much of a laugh either.

"Whether you like Anderson or not, you've got to admit the guy can write a script and has spot-on comic timing. His characters don't just stand there looking artfully miserable."

Many other attempts have been made by the official TikTok accounts of the likes of Manchester United Football Club, on their recent trip to Wembley, singer Tom Grennan and the BBC's Eurovision team; as well as British Airways and the British Red Cross.

And while Anderson, whose latest film Asteroid City will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month, has not yet publicly commented on the matter, imitation is, after all, the most sincere form of flattery.