The Phoenician Scheme: Wes Anderson Does Wes Anderson With Andersonian Results
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A-
At this point, it’s pretty much stating the obvious that writer-director Wes Anderson is his own genre.
Going in, you know you’re going to get a certain visual style, comedy, irony, fabulous art direction, shots set up like little dioramas, and a fabulous cast playing oddball characters who often speak in a clipped sentence or deliver lines in a deadpan way.
For Anderson fans, this constellation of techniques is part of the attraction, like opening a gift from an eccentric relative. It’s going to be interesting no matter what. But I wonder if the predictability of the form ultimately distracts from the deeper questions his movies are contemplating.
Anderson’s main characters are often dealing with loss or grief. But viewers are so caught up in the manic fun — the beautifully composed shots and art direction — that they’re distracted from big emotional reveals. And yet, if you are tuned in, his movies often have an unexpected punch.
And so it is with The Phoenician Scheme, which delivers an unexpectedly tender statement after the plot-heavy, Anderson-esque madness of the film’s quest.
Benicio Del Toro stars as the mysterious business magnate Anatole ‘Zsa Zsa’ Korda, one of the richest men in Europe. He’s presented as a mystery, a shady character, a weapons dealer who may have committed or ordered murders, possibly including one or more of his wives.
After almost dying in a plane crash, Zsa Zsa decides it’s time to do two things: build his signature dream project, the Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme, and appoint an heir from amongst his 10 children.
His choice is his eldest, 20-year-old Liesl (Mia Threapleton). Liesl is a nun, raised in a convent since age five. The two have been estranged, and their meeting is strained. Zsa Zsa wants her to help him raise the huge sums of money to help him build this project and ultimately take it over.
Liesl agrees. But she has a different reason for going along with him. There are rumours that Zsa Zsa murdered her mother, and that his brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch) is her real father. Liesl wants to find out the truth.
Also in the mix is her private tutor Bjorn (Michael Cera with an hilarious fake Norwegian accent) going along with the father and daughter on their mission.
The cost of the project is massive, so Zsa Zsa presents her with his plan to raise the money by targeting fabulously wealthy people, industrialists, syndicates, royalty and relatives with money, working out the percentage he’s hoping each will kick in.
Those include the Phoenician Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), railroad magnates Leland and Regan (Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston), an American shipping giant who talks like a beatnik (Jeffrey Wright), and his cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson). And getting to them all is a major undertaking.
In fact, there’s so much going on — especially in terms of the fundraising for the Phoenician project — that I had trouble following it and basically gave up. But honestly? That's not a big deal. The movie is dense with locations, characters, and conflicts that it’s enough to just sit back and watch the madness as they go from place to place, meeting to meeting.
And, given that Zsa Zsa’s many enemies keep trying to kill him, the film also includes several near-death experiences that land him, very briefly, in heaven a few times confronting a variety of figures, including his three deceased ex-wives, and once even coming face to face with the big guy, played by Anderson regular Bill Murray, in an appropriately splendid wild white wig and beard.
Towards the end of the film, Zsa Zsa, Liesl, and Bjorn finally meet up with his mysterious, arrogant, narcissistic and probably malevolent brother Nubar, hoping he’ll chip in a big chunk of change and answers about Liesl’s paternity.
There’s lots of competition in the movie, but nothing as delicious as what happens here. I wonder if I will see anything as funny at the movies this year as the Cain and Abel fight scene between the brothers, through several floors of a building, with Zsa Zsa dressed in white, and Nubar in black.
As with all Anderson’s movies The Phoenician Scheme is beautifully art directed and shot. It’s whimsical, eccentric, intelligent. Anderson throws a lot of narrative balls in the air and it’s amazing to watch how deftly he gets us through it all.
At the same time, there are downsides to Anderson being so resolutely Anderson, and having such a specific style and tone. The film can feel twee at times; there’s a point somewhere in the middle where the weight of all of the characters bogs the movie down.
The cast is another reason the film works so well. It’s wonderful to see Del Toro get a lead role. He’s in almost every scene, and incredibly watchable. Threapleton in her first film role, holds her own like a pro (she is Kate Winslet’s kid). It’s also great to see Canadian actor Cera get to play such a dimensional character.
The nut of the film, for me anyway, comes at a quick moment where Zsa Zsa asks a version of the question, “Do I matter?” It’s almost a throwaway. Anderson doesn’t dwell on it, and the film keeps moving. But it is the clue about what Anderson, and his frequent collaborator, co-writer Roman Coppola, are pondering here.
You can never accuse Anderson of being ordinary. But the question asked at some point in the film is answered, paying off in a most wonderful way. In the end, The Phoenician Scheme has a warm and beating heart.
The Phoenician Scheme. Written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. Directed by Wes Anderson. Starring Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson, and Benedict Cumberbatch. In theatres June 6.