The off-kilter auteur Wes Anderson returns with his best movie in years, The Phoenician Scheme, a comedy-forward romp that may launch some careers and reinvigorate a few others.
This most intriguingly titled of Anderson’s films since The Grand Budapest Hotel is also its only rival following his arguably lackluster output across the last 9 years. The Phoenician Scheme, again in the same vein, is easily the most comedic of the director’s recent output.
Following the extravagantly named Zsa-zsa Korda, a morally reprehensible and six-time assassinated arms-trader-come-come-developer, The Phoenician Scheme is pseudo-spy thriller that depicts the mogul’s journey around the fictionally drawn borderlines of Anderson’s retro Phoenicia. Broken up episodically, Korda’s attempt to stimy the shadowy powers orchestrating his financial ruin are shown via the contents of a series of emergency shoeboxes.
The film finds its characteristic whimsy in the methods by which Korda and his companions cavort around the middle-east, meeting the usual cast of colourful characters which, one by one, lead towards the final fateful meeting. The monster at the end of this heroes journey is the evil brother and arch nemesis of Zsa-zsa, Uncle Nubar, as played by a fantastically wigged and eye-brown enhanced Benedict Cumberbatch.
In fact, the performances by the trio of main protagonists, Benicio del Toro as the immoral businessman Zsa-zsa Korda, Mia Threapleton as Liesl, his estranged nun daughter and Michael Cera’s Bjorn, are each outstanding and, I hope, will all deserve serious consideration in this year’s academy awards.
More importantly than that vanity parade however, is the platform that this production might, in an ideal world, provide for the evidently talented Threapleton who, as someone of considerable acting stock, shines in this, her first leading cinematic role. Her deadpan glare and monotone accent combined with a delightfully peppy use of costume and makeup, as well as the various gaudy trinkets and accessories that she picks up only her journey, create a typically Andersonian character that is far more charming than it is tiresome, a tightrope Wes has found hard to balance at times.
Whilst he is already a household name, and in fact has been for some time, Cera’s outstanding role could similarly provide his career with a second wind. His performance as Bjorn, the Kordas’ resident Tutor on insect studies, is surprisingly multi-layered and well-developed. He manages to capture a sincerity in a character that could just as easily become a collection of surface level eccentricities. We’ve all known for quite some time that Michael Cera could act, but perhaps due to industry prejudice against comedy we haven’t given him a chance to really show it. I honestly hope that his performance in this film finally affords him that opportunity as he has been undervalued for far too long.
The Phoenician scheme is an interesting direction for Wes Anderson who has had a tough few years of critical reception. That was, of course, until his Oscar win in 2024 for the fantasy short film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, a Roald Dahl adaptation that marked his first academy award after two decades of nomination.
To follow this achievement with a film as extraverted as The Phoenician Scheme and that returns to some of the attitudes from earlier in his career, displays a greater confidence and maturity as the director’s filmography approaches its teens – no small feat for a man not yet 60.
In this sense, it seems that certain Andersonisms are restrained, or rather, the tendency for the almost stylistic self-parody in his movies of late is reeled back in.
Now, I don’t think that this is a concession.
In fact, that not every single character in The Phoenician Scheme is some soft-core self-styled lunatic, or that not every scene is shot in tableaux, or every conversation a muddled jumble of adverbs and ‘quirky’ anachronisms, is a breath of fresh air. Even as though it is a relief to a director who seems, at times, buried beneath the pastel-coloured weight of his own style.
That’s not to say that this film avoids all off the director’s worst excesses. Its dialogue still has remnants of that exaggerated word salad of bizarre idioms and references, something which Riz Ahmed’s role as Prince Farouk particularly struggles with, but, on the whole, manages to be genuinely charming and funny.
I must note the brief but fantastic inclusions of Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston as a pair of all-American investors whose free throwing bout against Korda and Prince Farouk is a definitive highlight. For a duo of actors, both iconic in their own right and yet never having the chance to work together, they have a brilliant on-screen chemistry, with their escalating showboating and excessive locker-room machismo in this scene probably the most entertaining sequence of the film.
Wes Anderson proves that, over 20 years into his career, he can turn out another uniquely entertaining flick, packed to the rafters with authentic eccentricity. Whilst its reception has been somewhat mixed. I anticipate that The Phoenician Scheme might, as so many of Anderson’s movies, become another cult classic. And deservedly so as it boasts something that so many modern movies sorely lack – real heart.
The Phoenician Scheme is available in UK cinemas until the 31st May. Facebook | Instagram
Review by Evan Meikle – Instagram | Muckrack
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