The Phoenician Scheme: A Review (Review #2036)

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME

By now, even the most casual filmgoer knows what he or she will be getting when they go to a Wes Anderson film. Enchanting to some, maddening to others, Anderson will never deviate from his twee aesthetic. Now, we get his newest film, The Phoenician Scheme. We see some old faces, some new faces, and the same droll manner that this time left me terribly, terribly cold.

Billionaire industrialist Anatole "Zsa-Zsa" Korda (Benicio del Toro) has survived yet another plane crash/assassination attempt. Hovering between life and death, Zsa-Zsa has visions of Heaven, but the divine court is unsure of whether or not he will enter Paradise.

Deciding to get things in order before his end (whenever that should be) Zsa-Zsa contacts his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton). Liesl is a Catholic novitiate who wants nothing to do with Zsa-Zsa. This frosty relationship is due in part to the suspicion that Zsa-Zsa murdered Liesl's mother in a jealous rage. Zsa-Zsa insists that he did no such thing. As The Phoenician Scheme goes on, we find that he technically did not pull the trigger but set the scene.

Liesl, somewhat reluctantly, goes with Zsa-Zsa as he sets off the Phoenician Scheme. He will get other people to fund his latest project involving a nuclear power plant and/or a dam. Zsa-Zsa is thoroughly unscrupulous in his business deals. Liesl watches as does Bjorn Lund (Michael Cera), Zsa-Zsa's secretary and entomologist. He cons two California businessmen (Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston) despite his poor basketball skills. Phoenician Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed) is to be fair, worse at basketball, having no concept of the game. He blackmails Marseilles Bob (Mathieu Amalric) but does save his life (albeit accidentally) from revolutionaries led by Sergio (Richard Ayoade). Finally, he threatens the life of his frenemy Marty (Jeffrey Wright) but does get him to pitch in.

Still, Zsa-Zsa is still half short of his financial goals. Could his cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson) be able to help? Will she agree to marry Zsa-Zsa anyway? What of Zsa-Zsa's half-brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch)? Nubar is an investor in the Phoenician Scheme. He is a fierce rival to Zsa-Zsa. He may also be Liesl's biological father and her mother's murderer. Will the scheme ultimately work? Will Zsa-Zsa be able to buy his way to Heaven? Is there a potential traitor within Zsa-Zsa's inner circle?

I'm reluctant to use the expression, "You've seen one, you've seen them all" when it comes to Wes Anderson's oeuvre. This is especially true since there have been Wes Anderson films that I have genuinely liked, such as Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Terms like "quirky" and "twee" are often used to describe Anderson's cinematic style. Some people love this style. I barely accepted Asteroid City and disliked his short film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which finally made him an Oscar winner. 

The Phoenician Scheme was not to my liking. Granted, you had lots of heady themes here: life, the afterlife, the good or evil that you do in the world following you to the next. However, I think that Anderson's deadpan manner, where everyone and everything is staccato, failed to make me care.

Some actors genuinely struggled with this manner. Of particular note is Anderson's fellow Oscar winner Riz Ahmed (who also won for his short film, the atrocious The Long Goodbye). He, in a curious criticism, seemed too animated for all of this. Ahmed could not make himself fit into Anderson's droll, deadpan manner. Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston could. Even Michael Cera could. Ahmed, conversely, looked genuinely lost trying to be emotionless. 

I also thought little of Benedict Cumberbatch as Nubar. Looking like Rasputin's crazier cousin, he continues to show that his acting is solely based on his rich and luxurious baritone. Unlike Ahmed, he did not struggle with Anderson's insistence on having the characters look almost comatose in their line delivery. Like Ahmed, he never convinced me that he believed these were even fictional people.

This was not a problem for Mia Threapleton. She got into the act quite well, able to keep up with the Andersonian dryness. At times, I thought Threapleton veered close to a parody of Andersonian dryness. However, by this time Anderson is so standard that I think it would be hard to parody something that already plays as parody.

Benicio del Toro was certainly in on the joke as Zsa-Zsa. I think he did well in The Phoenician Scheme. His character was amoral but who slowly, very slowly, started wondering if it was right. Seeing bits of Heaven and even a chat with God (Bill Murray) might do that with people. 

As a side note, I admit to chuckling when one of the federal government agents referred to the mole inside Zsa-Zsa's inner circle as "the bureaucrat from Baltimore". 

The Phoenician Scheme does have typically strong aesthetics in its costuming and set decoration. If one thing can be counted on with Wes Anderson, it is that his films will always look quirky, whimsical and yes, twee. 

That, however, seems to be an investment of diminishing returns. Aesthetics and style can go only so far. The Phoenician Scheme is a film I barely remember watching. I do not know if that is a good thing or not.

DECISION: D+