A parody of a host of film genres displays Wes Anderson’s style at its most avant-garde.
I’ve talked a lot about Wes Anderson over the years. In fact I’ve reviewed seven of his films on this show. I’m at the point where I want to just assume you know something about his work by now, and that I don’t have to keep describing his style and methods, such as sets that look like marvelous intricate toys, everything in bold colors, block-like patterns, with the camera either facing the actors head on or from the side, precise geometrical movements, the love of miniatures and marginal details; but this is unfair to you. You may be a new listener.
His latest is called The Phoenician Scheme, and it continues Anderson’s progression towards more and more free-floating avant-garde metafictional works. The plot is so absurd that it seems silly to describe it, but that won’t stop me from trying.
Benicio del Toro plays a corrupt wheeler-dealer industrialist named Zsa-zsa Korda. He is involved in multiple plots and swindles of which he’s lost control, and he’s teetering on the edge of ruin. He also has a habit of surviving suspicious plane crashes; there are many funny scenes taking place on an airplane, or the abstract idea of an airplane in an older time—this is all supposed to be in the 1950s. Anyway, he decides to leave his entire fortune to his daughter Liesl, a novitiate nun played by Mia Threapleton, tasking her with using that wealth to destroy his enemies if he dies. She is seemingly indifferent to her father, and resists every demand and suggestion, but is told by her mother superior to leave the order and help the great man.
Korda then outlines an impossibly elaborate scheme to round up the huge amounts of cash needed to put him back on top. All of them involve industrial developments such as a railroad tunnel or a canal, in the country of Phoenicia. Phoenicia, you may know, has not existed for over 2000 years, but that doesn’t matter in this movie.
This is just the premise, the beginning. The plot is so convoluted that it constitutes a joke in itself, Anderson’s version of the big motion picture about wealthy power brokers and their machinations. Most of the time, I couldn’t follow the reasoning behind the financial part of the scheme, but I don’t think you’re supposed to. Actually, I confess I didn’t quite know what I was watching half the time.
The main character, Korda, reminded me a little of Trump at first, but Anderson has a wider aim. He’s also making a film about the daredevil hero whom we know will always get out of whatever jam he’s in. But instead of a dashing heroic type, such as Harrison Ford, we get Del Toro as a morose old fellow stumbling forward, and not too smartly, causing havoc all around while maintaining an unearned attitude of casual optimism. It’s a strike against our own habit of expecting the lead in a movie to be a winner. The humor overall is drier than ever. We chuckle more than we laugh outright, and that’s the way it’s meant to be as well.
Threapleton, a new face, is the daughter looking upon everything with wide-eyed skepticism. Michael Cera, in his first Anderson film, is marvelous as Korda’s nerdy administrative assistant. And there is the usual large number of famous faces in minor roles. I’ve said before that Anderson can afford to be as experimental as he wants because of all the stars in his cast lists, and The Phoenician Scheme is his most experimental ever. It’s completely bonkers, and I love it.
