Josh Reviews The Phoenician Scheme

As The Phoenician Scheme opens, we see wealthy industrialist (and possibly also criminal/arms dealer?) Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro) narrowly survive an assassination attempt when his plane is blown up and crashes.  This near-death experience prompts Zsa-Zsa to reach out to his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who is about to take her vows as a nun.  Zsa-Zsa wants Liesl to take over his business, and assist him in his latest complicated scheme.  Liesl is hesitant, but out of a mixture of a desire to reconnect with her father, and also to perhaps/hopefully use her influence to prevent him from using his wealth and business power to do evil, agrees to travel with him.  The two are accompanied by Bjørn (Michael Cera), a Norwegian tutor Zsa-Zsa has hired to teach him about entomology in Zsa-Zsa’s spare time.  Together, the three set off on a complicated adventure in which Zsa-Zsa hopes to navigate the competing interests of a variety of (mostly shady) investors to pull together a complex and risky industrial plan.

A new Wes Anderson film is always a cause for excitement for me, though I sadly missed this one in theatres over the summer.  I had a delightful time watching The Phoenician Scheme, though I don’t think this one matches the heights of my favorite Wes Anderson films (such as The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, andThe French Dispatch, or even Mr. Anderson’s most recent film, 2023’s Asteroid City, which I loved).  I didn’t find that this film had the emotional depth of the best of Mr. Anderson’s movies.  This was more of just a fun romp, which means I didn’t think it was a masterpiece, but I still had a heck of a lot of fun watching it!

I love Wes Anderson’s specific stylization; I like the way he’s able to find humor in bleak circumstances and messed-up, broken characters.  While I know that I just wrote, above, that this film doesn’t have the emotional depth of the best of Wes Anderson’s work, I was still taken by the depiction in this movie of the slow, tentative steps towards reconciliation that Zsa-Zsa and his daughter Liesl take towards one another.  I was also interested in the way Mr. Anderson depicts the contrast between religion/faith (represented by Liesl) with business/finance (represented by Zsa-Zsa).

I always adore the sumptuous visual look of Wes Anderson’s films, and this film is packed with memorable imagery and settings, from Zsa-Zsa’s various planes to the different and unique home bases of every one of his business partners.  (My favorite was the parked ship belonging to Marty, played by Jeffrey Wright.)  I particularly loved the gorgeous overhead shot of Zsa-Zsa, recovering from a plane crash in his tub, while being attended to by various nurses, in front of which Mr. Anderson unfolds the film’s main titles and credits.  What a great way to start the movie!

As always, Mr. Anderson has assembled a magnificent cast, featuring some fantastic new players and the return of many of the usual members of the troupe that Mr. Anderson has collected over the years.  Let’s start with Benicio del Toro, who is perfect as Zsa-Zsa.  Mr. Anderson has made a career of depicting charismatic and aloof father figure characters (Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum was my first introduction to Wes Anderson’s world!), and Mr. del Toro does a fantastic job in bringing this new character to life.  Zsa-Zsa does a number of hatable things, but Mr. del Toro’s charm and good humor somehow keeps him lovable.  His deadpan delivery of Mr. Anderson’s dialogue os magnificent.  (Each time he said “Myself, I feel very safe”, it got funnier and funnier.)  I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mia Threapleton, who plays Liesl, in a movie before, but she was terrific!  Ms. Threapleton is somehow even more deadpan, and even funnier, than Mr. del Toro!!  I loved their scenes together.  Their chemistry really worked.  (The movie wouldn’t work if these two didn’t click so well together.)  Rounding out the main trio is Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Barbie), who was born to play a character in a Wes Anderson movie!  Mr. Cera is hilarious as Bjørn, stiff and quirky and also intelligent and romantic.  This is a classic Wes Anderson type of character, and Mr. Cera hits it out of the park.

I loved that Tom Hanks joined the Wes Anderson ensemble in Asteroid City, and I was thrilled to see him back here, paired up with the great Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, The Studio), as a pair of wealthy basketball-loving American businessmen.  Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace) is wonderful as Marseille Bob, the polite French gangster and nightclub owner.  Riz Ahmed (The Night Of, Rogue One) is very funny as young Prince Farouk of Phoenicia, who is assisting Zsa-Zsa in his industrial schemes.  Jeffrey Wright (the Daniel Craig James Bond films, Syriana, The Ides of March, Westworld, What If…?) ditches his usual serious persona and plays very amusingly chipper as Marty, a shipping magnate based on a large boat.  Scarlett Johansson (also returning from Asteroid City) brings sparkling life to her scenes as Zsa-Zsa’s cousin, investor, and possible love-interest.  Benedict Cumberbatch (who was so wonderful playing the title role in Wes Anderson’s short-film adaptation of the Roald Dahl story The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar) is very funny as the villainous Uncle Nubar (wearing a ridiculous-looking fake beard and busy eyebrows).  Rupert Friend (Pride & Prejudice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Death of Stalin) is amusingly droll as the bureaucrat-villain “Excalibur”.  Hope Davis (American Splendor, Synecdoche: New York, Captain America: Civil War) commands attention in her brief scenes as Liesl’s supervisor at the convent, Mother Superior.  Richard Ayoade is fun as Sergio, a guerilla freedom-fighter/revolutionary.  Billy Murray is of course back in another Wes Anderson movie, and this time he plays God, which is perfect and hilarious.  Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, and Charlotte Gainsbourg pop up in Zsa-Zsa’s visions of heaven, and it’s a pleasure to see each of them.

I had a lot of fun watching The Phoenician Scheme, and this is a movie I can’t wait to see again.  (I’m curious to see how this film plays for me upon repeat viewings.  Many of Mr. Anderson’s films rise in my estimation on a second viewing, because there are always so many layers, both visually and story/character-wise, to unpack.  I wonder if that will happen here.)

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