The Phoenician Scheme Is Ideal for Wes Anderson Fans

The Phoenician Scheme shows how important stylization is to movies. The premise could have been told by any number of filmmakers, each in their own unique way. However, what’s presented here is a delightfully quirky return to a more direct narrative courtesy of auteur Wes Anderson. His fans who left Asteroid City unimpressed will welcome this pivot. The question then is whether The Phoenician Scheme may appeal to audiences outside the Anderson niche.

Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) is a fabulously wealthy businessman. Following a failed assassination attempt, he calls for his only daughter, a novitiate nun named Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton). She hesitantly agrees to assist his endeavor to complete a massive undertaking known as the titular Phoenician Scheme. The estranged pair is soon compelled by those allied against them to trot the globe in hopes of preventing the project’s demise. Doing so means peculiar negotiations with oddball businesspeople, gunplay with terrorists, and every aspect of espionage skullduggery. Success is not guaranteed, though they will risk everything to see things through.

There are not a lot of directors whom casual film goers can recognize solely by their visual aesthetics. Those who enjoy, I dare say look forward to, the hyper stylization Wes Anderson is known for won’t be disappointed. The Phoenician Scheme is a masterful display of the director’s typical visual choices — highly symmetrical, deliberate color palate, flat space emphasis of two-dimensionality. Unlike certain segments of The French Dispatch, more scenes are composed of minimal components, allowing the audience to see things more casually. This less-is-more presentation doesn’t exhaust a viewer.

Still, the usual Wes Anderson trademarks are present throughout The Phoenician Scheme. What’s missing is the cinematic attempt to push those to their limit. In his previous pictures, such as The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, the director bordered on parodying his own style given the intensity of its presence. The latter film also felt like a foray into more metaphorical narrative territory. With The Phoenician Scheme, the presentation remains distinctly Wes Anderson, but there is a tempered restraint closer to The Grand Budapest Hotel that borders on surreal without ever alienating the audience. In other words, this isn’t just for the diehard fans who will bend over backwards to call it entertaining.

The Phoenician Scheme is a genuinely engaging dark comedy full of espionage intrigue. It can be quite mirthful, never taking itself too seriously. At the same time, there are black and white diversions into the realm of art films as Anderson tips a hat to Ingmar Bergman. Yet, bleak existential angst spiced with sarcasm are part of the hipster auteur’s recipe, and these blend seamlessly into the overall narrative. That story itself being comprised of the filmmaker’s usual themes surrounding estranged families composed of uniquely gifted individuals.

It’s hard not to notice Wes Anderson has, thematically, made the same movie for most of his career. His ability to find fresh angles through which audiences can explore various notions of familial connection are impressive. The Phoenician Scheme also reminds viewers how often his films involve some type of caper. Here, those themes come together for the lightest dark comedy imaginable.

Despite a certain whimsical fabulism, The Phoenician Scheme is an oddly dark tale. There’s a sugarcoated cynicism to the material that gives the movie permission to delve into grim topics. Meanwhile, the intended project echoes a proposal by real life engineer Herman Sörgel called Atlantropa. As such, The Phoenician Scheme is about the sacrifices it takes to make dreams come true, sometimes questioning if they really are worth it.

Wes Anderson is known for using the same performers repeatedly. Many of those familiar faces are here alongside several new ones. The fresh inclusions slide into the picture perfectly. There isn’t an individual out of step with the film’s intended tone or the controlled pace of its dialogue.

Mia Threapleton (Shadows) is expertly deadpan in her delivery. Benicio del Toro (Reptile) straddles the line between mysterious and emotionless, ably offering the disaffected quality inherent in most of Wes Anderson’s central characters. The two are excellent as a pair, presenting individuals who seem dead inside until they give one another a reason to have more feelings.

Michae Cera (Barbie) plays Zsa-zsa’s entomology tutor Bjørn Lund. He starts out as someone swept up in the titular scheme, who soon reveals a greater use along the way. It’s hard to be certain if this was entirely intentional, but Cera’s presence is forgettable even when in frame. His ability to blend into the background almost makes me want to rewatch the film to see if he was doing anything other than sitting still since, whenever he wasn’t speaking, attention naturally drifted to anyone in the foreground. Meanwhile, later revelations imply subtle behaviors since his character is supposed to be unnoticed.

The Phoenician Scheme features a great deal of the expository dialogue indicative of a Wes Anderson movie. Normally, this produces absurdly humorous exchanges. Characters are blunt with one another in ways that are comical which keeps the lines from being dull descriptions. Still, there is a certain room for subtle implications. Hope Davis (Synecdoche, New York) as Mother Superior is a great example of how people in The Phoenician Scheme try to talk around their real intentions. Some of the comedy then stems from others being more direct.

In many ways, The Phoenician Scheme is par for the course when it comes to Wes Anderson. Thematically and visually, there aren’t many risks per se. That isn’t to suggest such a film is easy to put together. The point is that this film is a solid delight for fans of this particular auteur’s style. How welcoming it is for newcomers is another question entirely.

Anyone typically uninterested in his films by this point is unlikely to be won over by The Phoenician Scheme. Those just getting into the director’s oeuvre will probably be propelled deeper down the rabbit hole. This is a solid win for Wes Anderson fans.