Many Wes Anderson movies are about the troubled relationships between father figures and their children. It is a potent well that he continues to find new depths in. Usually there is a moment of some earnestness on the patriarch’s part that bridges the divide and makes room for reconciliation. But I can’t identify that moment in The Phoenician Scheme -and I believe it is a part of why the movie feels underwhelming against Anderson’s wider oeuvre.
Certainly it feels like his first throwback movie in a while, far more similar to Rushmore or The Life Aquatic than his more recent efforts. Like those movies and The Royal Tenenbaums it is centred on a particularly thorny protagonist, a 1950s industrial tycoon in the arms dealing business called Anatole Zsa-Zsa Korda, played by Benicio del Toro -who has survived many an assassination attempt through his plan to set in motion a radical and deeply unethical new business enterprise in Phoenicia. To secure the confidence and support of his various wealthy investors in light of new obstacles to the scheme and his vast fortune, he embarks on an extensive journey to convince them, in the process attempting to make amends with his daughter and handpicked heir Liesl (Mia Threapleton) -who has spent most of her life in a convent since the death of her mother whom Korda is believed to have murdered.
The episodic structure we get out of this is a bit more in-line with Anderson’s recent proclivities, giving excuse too for a wide array of actors and bizarre characters, several of whom are critical for Korda to get on-side for the success of his venture. These include the crown prince of Phoenicia played by Riz Ahmed, a pair of wealthy brothers and basketball virtuosos from Sacramento played by Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston, a French racketeer played by Mathieu Amalric, a New Jersey businessman played by Jeffrey Wright, and an evil estranged half-brother played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who Korda believes actually killed Liesl’s mother. Additionally, the film features several old and new Anderson regulars like Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, and a fitting Bill Murray.
Most of them are here doing a lot of the things you expect in a Wes Anderson movie as far as eccentric characters and acting choices go. And the story on a whole has got a lot of the things you expect from a Wes Anderson movie in style and presentation, with a few new ideas that are compelling to explore. However there aren’t nearly enough of these and where Anderson’s thematic priorities are with this film, he doesn’t deliver on them as strongly as his last few projects. In general, the movie seems to be in search of its sense of purpose, which was not the case for Asteroid City or The French Dispatch. It has a vague idea, expressed best in a few spiritual sequences that buffet each near-death experience for Korda where he sees an apparent glimpse of a decidedly Christian afterlife, relating to his daughter’s sense of faith and virtues.
These small sections of the film are the most compelling, on both their implications and their visuals. Shot in black and white with a particular starkness of contrast that evokes (likely intentionally) The Passion of Joan of Arc, they don’t quite resemble any world Anderson has previously built -minimalist, intangible, and somewhat inscrutable, even with the occasional Catholic architecture and symbolism. As much a dream plane as an honest vision of Heaven, either way perhaps clouded by Korda’s perception. Here, he is expected to grapple with his soul and his mortality as his deeds are judged. There is some really fascinating imagery here, such as the appearance of Liesl as a little girl and others who are not deceased, of course the spectre of Liesl’s mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who lets Korda in on a secret he may have known all along. Yet any real wisdom he gains from these encounters with an afterlife are nebulous -he himself, an atheist, doesn’t seem so moved in either the spiritual or corporeal realm, and it gets to the harsher roots of his character.
Anderson and del Toro have crafted a fairly curious and entertaining figure here, much as he is composed of familiar tenets of Andersonian anti-heroes. He is confident and reckless in equal measure, and the amount of times he has escaped death has resulted in an enjoyably deadpan cavalier attitude (on finding a bomb aboard the aircraft he is reassured by the fact the plane will land before its timer will go off). But Korda’s character arc is borderline microscopic; what Liesl means to him, how he considers her faith, and even the broader ethics of his own actions are all subject to change, but without a readily identifiable spark. The emotional journeys of Anderson’s protagonists are often subtle -especially of late- but here it is especially difficult to identify Korda’s humanity against the scale of his project and transgressions.
Additionally, there is a lack of stylistic originality at play here. Anderson doesn’t push himself so much, and while the movie indulges in quoting such films as Citizen Kane or The Rules of the Game, it is also a quite staunch imitation by Anderson of his own aesthetics and clichés. The use of shoe boxes for instance as representative of each investor feels noticeably quirky for its own sake. The same device could have been communicated in any number of ways -this choice feels like it is trying to capture Moonrise Kingdom in a distinctly un-Moonrise Kingdom kind of context. And it is in service of negotiations-focused business subject matter that is rather dry on its face as well. There are distractions and thrills to be had, sure; but the narrative that they colour is often staunchly uninspiring, and given the capitalist ruthlessness, quite dim.
Yet I can’t bring myself to fully dislike the movie. Even when fairly generic on its own terms, Anderson’s signatures are still very compelling, his world still a fun one to occupy. There’s a fair bit of enjoyable humour in the film -running gags such as Korda recognizing several assassins as people who worked for him, or the hand grenades given to everyone as gifts. Michael Cera ‘s Bjørn, a Norwegian entomologist and tutor for Liesl -whom he is of course infatuated with- comes along on the journey and makes for an obviously good fit for the Andersonian dialogue and rhythms. And his character is subverted in some very fun ways. Most of the other actors make out well with their material, with a few exceptions (namely Johansson), and several of the set-pieces are charming, if not so dynamic. That said, the playful violence of the climax involving an unusually physical camera is fairly fun.
Phoenicia exists in this film as a vague amalgam of land loosely related to the lands of northern Africa connected with the Iron Age culture of the same name. But it is highly intangible. The themes Anderson attempts to explore in The Phoenician Scheme are just the same, and combined with his more banal attitude towards his own art, it is one of his lesser movies as a result. There’s a shallowness to his presentation and narrative arcs here, and the movie isn’t particularly memorable for either its characters or aesthetics. It’s still more curious than your average movie -it would be nigh impossible for an Anderson movie not to be, but that is a low bar for such a considerable filmmaker, and I hope his work proves more substantive next time around.
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