‘The Phoenician Scheme' Review: A Brilliant Benicio del Toro Leads Wes Anderson's Poignant Narrative Jigsaw Puzzle
It's been a challenging few years to be a fan of Wes Anderson (not that it's ever really been easy).
Since the commercial and critical success of The Grand Budapest Hotel, the filmmaker has released works that have doubled down on the quirkiness of his visual style and grown more intellectually meta-textual. One sparked minor controversy (Isle of Dogs) and another inspired more confusion than admiration (The French Dispatch). His most recent feature-length project instigated some eye-rolls (Asteroid City) and a 39-minute short released later that year was mostly ignored (The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, an underrated gem). In general, Anderson's movies have been criticized for being so insular and indulgent of the auteur's trademark aesthetics that they distance everyone except the stans and the stars.
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The Phoenician Scheme, Anderson's latest film, won't have true haters reconsidering their options, but it will entice those who've been feeling alienated to rejoin rank. The espionage comedy flaunts an excellent Benecio del Toro as Zsa-zsa Korda, a serpentine 1950s industrialist, who, after surviving another assassination attempt on his life, begins to consider his legacy.
In a well-meaning but poorly executed attempt at redemption, Zsa-zsa names his estranged daughter Liesl (an equally fine Mia Threapleton) as heir to his empire. The only problem is Liesl, on the verge of taking her oath to become a nun, doesn't want the job. She's still mad at her father for her mother's death. Their relationship is strained and, quite frankly, she wants nothing to do with a man so unabashedly sinful. But the two manage to strike a deal with Liesl agreeing to a trial period, in which Zsa-zsa will review the complex processes he uses to manipulate the market, scam his allies and cheat his competitors, and Liesl can decide if she wants to be heir.
Premiering at Cannes in competition before Focus releases it widely on June 6, The Phoenician Scheme marks a return for Anderson to the emotionally grounded and intimate narratives that made his more accessible works (like Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom) so popular. Part of the film is inspired by Anderson's late father-in-law Fouad Malouf (to whom the project is dedicated), and in recent interviews the director has suggested that having his own daughter likely influenced thematic elements of the film.
Indeed, there's a sense that Anderson is considering a deeper set of questions here. The Phoenician Scheme tethers the filmmaker's existential interests (the unfettered power of the billionaire class, unchecked greed and environmentalism) to the kind of poignant humanistic narrative that's been missing from his latest offerings.
The relationship between Zsa-zsa and Liesl unspools with humor, insightful revelations and a bit of surprise. Del toro and Threapleton make a winning pair as a father and daughter learning to relate to one another. Anderson built del Toro's role around the actor, who repays him with a beauty of a performance, embodying the detached charisma of a morally dubious tycoon with cool ease. From the moment we meet Zsa-zsa, the depth of his ruthlessness is apparent, but he becomes disarmed in the face of his equally forceful daughter. Del Toro and Threapleton play their characters in a way that allows these two people, who initially seem diametrically opposed, to start to resemble one another. Most of this happens on a micro level, with facial expressions and an almost mirroring physicality.
As with all Anderson films, The Phoenician Scheme boasts an enchanting world in which viewers can get lost. The director shows off his meticulous attention to detail and symmetrical composition, as well as a muted and moody color grading that serves as a steady reminder of the film's darker themes.
Collaborating again with Roman Coppola (Asteroid City) on the story, Anderson constructs one of his most complicated narratives yet. After Liesl agrees to the trial run, Zsa-zsa retrieves six show boxes that contain blueprints for three complex infrastructure projects across the fictional Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia. Each part of the plan requires Zsa-zsa and now Liesl to persuade a number of industrial barons and powerful bankers to help finance the project.
Just before they embark on their journey, though, Zsa-zsa realizes that his enemies have fixed the price of a key tool, which has increased the cost of construction around the region. Now, he must manipulate all these people to give more money so they can shrink the deficit. It's a challenging jigsaw and there's a bit of math involved, but fully grasping it isn't a requirement for enjoying The Phoenician Scheme.
What's important to keep in mind are the key players, who include Anderson regulars and a few newcomers. Joining Zsa-zsa and Liesl on their journey is Bjorn (Michael Cera, hilarious), an entomologist from Oslo whom Zsa-zsa hires to teach him about insects. He's a strange figure, who slowly falls for and tries to woo Liesl. There's also Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), Leland (Tom Hanks) and Reagan (Bryan Cranston), with whom Zsa-zsa must play basketball in order to get their blessing for constructing a railway (and also for more money).
Other people the pair must deal with include the American shipping magnate Marty (Jeffrey Wright, ripe to lead an Anderson film one day); Zsa-zsa's second cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson); and Zsa-zsa's shadowy and somehow even more morally dubious brother, Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch). As Zsa-zsa and Liesl race across the region in their private jet, a radical militia led by a man named Sergio (Richard Ayode) trails them. They aren't Zsa-zsa's only problem: Everywhere he goes, the tycoon must watch out for assassination attempts.
As with all Anderson films, the actors commit to the weird and zany rules of the director's world. People talk fast, dispensing information with efficiency, and there are some wonderful (and explosive) set pieces. Working again with Adam Stockhausen in production design and Milena Canonero in costuming, Anderson constructs the world of Zsa-zsa and all his shady dealings as one of gluttonous consumption. It's hard not to think about the current cadre of tech moguls — Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg among many others — when you watch the unscrupulous scheming. In one of my favorite gags, Zsa-zsa succinctly sums up what feels like a motto for the one percent: 'I am not a citizen at all. I don't need my human rights.'
The Phoenician Scheme moves so briskly that its tenderness sneaks up on you. One minute Zsa-zsa and Liesl are fighting about what really happened to her mother (an ongoing mystery), and the next the two seem like they might be finding common ground. It's within this narrative thread that The Phoenician Scheme reveals its optimistic core. Before Zsa-zsa survived his sixth assassination attempt, he briefly died and entered a kind of liminal, heaven-as-fever-dream space. (These interludes are in black-and-white and pop up frequently throughout the film). This confrontation with mortality and God doesn't make the atheist billionaire more religious, but it does push him to re-evaluate what's important to him and reach out to his daughter. It's that specific brush with death that propels the first real, and most honest, deal of his life.
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