“The Phoenician Scheme” marks the 12th feature film in writer/director Wes Anderson’s near 30-year career. Anderson, working from a script co-written with frequent screenwriting collaborator Roman Coppola, channels his innermost self to produce another exacting artifact of precise framing, intricate set design, stitch-perfect costumes, and a caravan of his favorite stock actors, plus a few newcomers who will surely become part of his future movie plans.
The knock on Anderson is he’s a director who is the victim of his peculiarities. He’s a film auteur who makes films that look, smell, and feel different from everyone else’s. To say a movie is “Wes Anderson-y” is to evoke a particular cinematic style reserved for one filmmaker—Wes Anderson. Like other auteurs such as Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, or Martin Scorsese, when you watch a Wes Anderson movie, you know you’re watching a Wes Anderson movie. And “The Phoenician Scheme” is no different. The movie carries forth the styling and aesthetics that have always been a Wes Anderson trademark but have grown in intensity since his brilliant 2014 film, “Grand Budapest Hotel.” In that film, Anderson drew upon all his strengths, including screenwriting, to craft an adventure that struck a chord with a dose of poignancy that’s been missing in the decade since.
Detractors of Wes Anderson, who love him so much they hate him because he refuses to break out of the comfort zone that sets him apart from every other filmmaker, will find plenty to gripe and gristle about with “The Phoenician Scheme.” The film, another puzzle box story that unfolds in a wave of fast-moving plot complexity, yet easily solvable once you clear past all of the tracking shots and still frames, carefully composed in a throw-back 1.44:1 aspect ratio, is about an industrialist named Zsa-Zsa Korda, played by Benicio del Toro with the relish of an actor we’ve forgotten how great he can be when given a role big and meaty enough to suit his abundance of talent. Korda is on a boondoggle to secure his legacy with one last ambitious scheme before one of his umpteenth assassination attempts catches up with him.
Korda is a family man. Well, he’s amassed an enormous family with many wives, who have all died under mysterious circumstances—he swears it wasn’t him. His vast European fortune, which hangs in the balance of this latest scheme, will go to one of his nine children (eight boys and one Catholic novice). Korda summons the nun-in-training, Sister Liesel, to accept her birthright and help him complete his Phoenician Scheme. The reluctant Liesel (played with deadpan brilliance by newcomer Mia Threapleton) reluctantly accepts the challenge, if only to exact revenge on her uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), who Korda says murdered her mother.
This setup is all but an excuse for Anderson to take his audience on a wild adventure as Korda and Liesel meet up with one potential investor after another, trying to secure their participation in the scheme. Along the way, Korda will learn to care for someone other than himself or his business interests, and Liesel will get to know the father she never had, even if that man isn’t even her real father.
There are twists and turns along the way, but the fun of the film lies in navigating these chapters, which provide Anderson’s frequent acting collaborators the opportunity to have fun chewing up the scenery. An especially hilarious scene finds the potential investment in Korda’s scheme contingent on a basketball dunking contest. I won’t tell you who wins, but Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks steal the scene in the process.
Missing from this film is the almost always reliable quirky soundtrack of odd Wes Anderson jukebox favorites. Instead, the tunes are replaced with a brilliant score from another frequent Anderson collaborator, Alexandre Desplat. Even Desplat’s wife shows up in one of several afterlife dream sequences as one of Korda’s dead wives.
Another part of the fun of watching “The Phoenician Scheme” is picking out Wes Anderson’s film references. “Scheme” looks to the past of the inventive, visually stylish comedies and dramas of The Archers, filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. This British filmmaking duo wrote and directed some of the greatest British films of all time, from “The Red Shoes,” “Canterbury Tale,” “Black Narcissus,” to “I Know Where I’m Going!” Two of their masterpieces, “A Matter of Life and Death” and “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” appear to have significant influence on the proceedings here. The afterlife dream sequences evoke “A Matter of Life and Death,” and the basketball contest I referenced earlier shares a kinship to the famous duel sequence in “Colonel Blimp.” There are even shades of the 1969 abstract film, “The Color of Pomegranates.” It’s fine if you haven’t seen these films or recognize the filmmakers Anderson is referencing, but it shows that his point of reference is deep.
One notable aspect of this film is its cinematography. “The Phoenician Scheme” marks the first time Anderson shot one of his live-action features without Robert Yoeman as his director of photography. French master Bruno Delbonnel takes over for “The Phoenician Scheme,” and he is more than up for the task. No continuity is lost in the switch, and if anything, “The Phoenician Scheme” could be the best-looking Anderson film to date. It’s the closest approximation I’ve seen of a film shot today to mirror the look of a 3-strip technicolor film. The film’s look conjures the spirit of The Archers’ legendary go-to cinematographer, Jack Cardiff. Are these not enough plaudits to convince you to give “The Phoenician Scheme” a shot? Is it Wes Anderson’s best? No. But even on Wes Anderson’s lesser days, a movie like “The Phoenician Scheme” is worth the price of admission.
James Kent is the arts editor for the Mountain Times.
“The Phoenician Scheme” is now playing at The Nugget Theaters.
