The Phoenician Scheme

For the first time since 2007's The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson does not position his newest film as a story we're being told. There's no opening of a book cover, no narrator, and no presentation of a stage play. After reaching peak metafiction with Asteroid City (whose brilliance I become more convinced of on each subsequent viewing), he signals a clean break by taking us into the present. He doesn't completely abandon his style, of course. Hang any frame on a wall, surrounded by nothing else, and it's still obviously a Wes Anderson movie. Characters speak and act as you've come to expect since at least Moonrise Kingdom, it heavily utilizes symmetry (and its absence) and dolly shots and ninety degree whip pans, and there are chapter headings to break up the journey across Phoenicia. You likely already know if his style works for you, and this is largely more of the same.

That said, along with the abandonment of a nested structure, there's a different quality to the whole film. The few moments of voice-over come from a news broadcast. On occasion, his camera abandons its precise geometry for more lively shots, such as a visceral, seconds-long POV shot near the end. There's some pretty stark violence, even as it's heightened and played with deep humor. He intercuts a few black & white dreams/visions, and drops us into them with a flicker of its negative. It's probably his most nakedly political story, even more so than Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes seems to be signalling a shift, which shouldn't be surprising - I don't know how much more he could explore the limits of artificial story-telling after the one-two punch of his last film and Roald Dahl cycle.

I just never envisioned him pivoting to a satire of Infrastructure Week.

While obviously a reductive description, it's nowhere near as imprecise as Anderson's previous work would have you believe. The central story concerns industrialist Anatole Zsa-zsa Gorda (Benecio del Toro) as he attempts to hold together the the titular massive, country-spanning construction project in the face of assassination attempts and US government sabotage. While the plot is mostly a framework for bringing our protagonists into contact with a colorful cadre of characters, its machinations are a bit more consequential than Anderson's other movies. In part, this is because he's using it to comment on wealthy benefactors, the privatization of infrastructure, and the inability for government to protect itself or its people. Additionally, as part of Gorda's desire to get his affairs in order, he calls on his estranged, soon-to-be-a-nun daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who has her own goal: figure out who killed her mother, and bring them to justice (by which I mean arrest them).

Threapleton is a fairly new actor, but has no trouble slotting into Anderson's brand of bone-dry wit and strange dramatic flourishes. It's even more impressive when considering how much screentime she shares with titans of the craft. Her co-leads are del Toro and Michael Cera, both of whom are fantastic in their roles that place diametrically opposed demands on them. She has a scene or two each with Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, and Benedict Cumberbatch, to name a few. Yet in most cases, she manages to land the funniest part of an already hilarious interaction. Threapleton demonstrates astounding physical control, whether through a near-perfect line delivery, being flustered by Gorda's antics, or delivering a wonderfully calculated look accompanied by a barely perceptible but delightfully effective frown. Liesl sits slightly outside the normal Anderson quirkiness, often reacting to the same things the audience does, albeit in a far more muted manner. After all, she is of this world, and her behavior isn't so far removed from the others' as to be unrecognizable - see the dramatically mannered way in which she accuses Gorda of murdering her mother.

The rapport she develops with del Toro helps highlight Gorda's concern with his legacy over his relationships. It's clear his many, many near-death experiences (including 6 7 plane crashes!) have led to re-evaluating and re-prioritizing how he wants to be remembered. While ostensibly comparable to Royal Tenebaum, Gorda is not the least bit regretful of his choices, nor is he looking to repair his relationships. He's a selfish bastard who seeks only to grow his wealth and influence; he involves Liesl simply to play off her sense of familial obligation in the event of his actual demise. Of course, circumstance forcing the two of them on a journey presents the opportunity for his heart to soften.

Interestingly, the same is true for Liesl, but in the opposite direction. She's a good and virtuous (if imperfect and somewhat naive) person, so the unintentional influence of her father causes her piety to slip. She slowly stops denying herself life's simple pleasures, such as the possession of a gemstone emblazoned secular Rosary and imbibing hard alcohol like beer and champagne. Family just has a way of rubbing off on you, even if they're undeserving of your time and attention.

Maybe that also explains the existence of a background subtheme involving servants and other aids at each location we visit. Their presence is never directly acknowledged by the characters, but is distinctly felt - we always get a very deliberate shot of them looking unimpressed as stupidly wealthy men squabble over a gigantic money pit of a project that will deeply impact their lives but that they are powerless to influence. It ties into Gorda's repeated comment that the Phoenician Scheme will require slave labor (which he insists is okay because he's pretty sure they receive a small stipend), as well as their multiple encounters with Sergio (Richard Ayoade) and his band of Robin Hood-inspired communist revolutionaries. Maybe most interesting is Gorda's own connection to such a plight, which is calls to mind 2022's The Menu. I don't know it ever coheres into something truly poignant, but the pieces are all there for you to cobble together as you see fit.

Which is probably the best way to describe the experience of watching this film. It's got all the ingredients to make a hearty stew, and eating it is a joy, but you're nonetheless left hungry. I was frequently laughing, but not super hard. There are some truly spectacular lines, but no really profound moments. The satire is present, but lacks bite. It's largely missing heartfelt emotion, partially due to the myriad ridiculous characters whose performances always stay pitched about the same, and partially due to its relentlessly frenetic pace. As a result, all the takeaways I've mentioned (as well as those I have not) come more from a cerebral place, from stepping back afterwards and considering the totality of the work, rather than from feeling them in the moment. While I will never bag on a film which requires you to "do the work", the fruits of that labor need to land strongly. Otherwise, it breeds a degree of resentment for being left cold despite your efforts.

Even the visuals fell victim to this lack of warmth. While they're still undeniably Wes, incredibly colorful and creative and full of tiny character details, the backgrounds feel less substantive, even in some interiors. He seems to have made extensive use of green screen¹, so many of the locations look flat and bizarrely lit, as if they're trying to give the illusion of depth rather than achieving it. While that argument could also have been levied against Asteroid City, its conception as a television broadcast of a stageplay of a stageplay meant any artificiality played into its design, and was accepted as intentional. Not so here: when noticeable (which is frequent although not constant), the artificiality never feels purposeful, rendering the shot cheap and distancing. Given Anderson's heavy focus on the look of his films, that even a minor element most audience members are unlikely to notice is subpar is worth comment.

Anderson's strength as a storyteller is his ability to use absurdism and unreality to disarm you. He strips his characters down to wireframes, rebuilding them in layers, one motivation or emotion neatly placed on top of another. So as we get to know them, as their insides are exposed to the open air, we find ourselves invested despite their unrelatability. I'll never forget crying at a key moment in The Royal Tenenbaums on a recent re-watch, despite it featuring a host of irredeemable and miserable characters who constantly hurt and betray each other. At his best, Anderson is capable of infusing his films with such a deep humanity, made more unexpected by his penchant for drenching it in his hyper-stylized dollhouse worlds.

That's the real reason this fails to resonate. By shifting a chunk of his focus to bigger issues of modern geopolitics, as well as vaguely defined underlying social issues, neither of which are deeply interrogated, he distracts from the emotional core of the film. The experience of discovering family through reconnecting with your existing relatives while forging new bonds is quite present, it's just not very palpable, which keeps us at arm's length. It remains incredibly entertaining (despite few people joining me in audibly laughing at either screening I attended), but that lack of an emotional core keeps it in the lower tier of Anderson's filmography. That such an enjoyable film is surpassed by so many of his other movies speaks to why he's one of my favorite directors; even his "lesser" works are the envy of other filmmakers.