In news that shouldn’t shock anybody, Wes Anderson has made yet another film that’s as pretty to look at as it is devastating to think about. The Phoenician Scheme is releasing about two years to the day from his previous feature, and possible opus, Asteroid City. With that film, Anderson’s heightened reliance on artifice came to a head. It was as if the realization of one’s inability to control the devastating curves life places on our path could only be grappled with through perfectly tailoring our own stories. With his latest film, Anderson shifts the reasoning for his style that is often mocked, criticized, and/or desperately belittled by hollow individuals trying to make valid claims for the benefits of AI (they’re all incorrect mimicries and, more importantly, boring and ugly.) All the beauty and regality on display in Zsa-Zsa Korda’s (Benicio del Toro) home and various locales visited isn’t just a symbol of a filmmaker’s ability to create perfectly realized worlds in physical sets. It’s a clear observation and reckoning with how hollow it can all feel if there’s nobody around to share it with.
Each new setting Anderson brings to his audience looks excellent. The storybook quality is always there. But a small part of the mind can’t help but notice just how artificial it all feels. It’s often said that the best stories are the ones that end and we can vividly picture what occurs after the credits roll. In the case of The Phoenician Scheme, these sets feel quite the opposite. If the camera were to move a few inches out of place, we’d see all the seams of this film in their entirety. That’s not a knock on the production design. Nor is it merely an obvious observation about the essential nature of properly framing a film. One of Anderson’s greatest strengths has always been his ability to mine the most potent truths of reality in stories so clearly fabricated from fiction and imagination. These settings feel empty because, simply put, there is nobody to inhabit them alongside Zsa-Zsa. He barely exists within them himself. We instead come to learn how he floats through the world from one business deal to the next, doing all he can to secure his legacy and amass an even greater fortune. Through his own twisted view of reality, he details why he “doesn’t need human rights.” Across a lifetime of constantly trying to one-up everybody around him, enemies, colleagues, and family alike, Zsa-Zsa has completely lost any shred of personal identity. Despite so much name recognition around the world, Zsa-Zsa seems to feel both hollow and alone in the vast expanse of the globe he has travelled across on countless business dealings.
Anderson doesn’t use such emptiness being present in the character as a crutch however. This isn’t a complete example of shallow character writing. Sure, it might have benefitted the film slightly if Zsa-Zsa, or at least his past, was a bit more fleshed out for the viewer. As it stands currently, any emotional revelations made by a character in this film are not nearly as felt as some of Anderson’s past masterworks. That lack of interiority, however intentional, is felt in the perception of the film as a whole. But there are exceptions to this critique. When Anderson deliberately chooses to explore Zsa-Zsa’s mind are moments that utilize such fascinating turns. Beyond their subtext, these moments see the film break free of countless notions Anderson has become known for. The handful of interstitials in question are stylistically jarring. In retrospect, they represent a fascinating and exciting look into Anderson’s ever-evolving cinematic abilities. That’s all to say that the ultimate goal of The Phoenician Scheme is a noble one. And it’s a goal that is achieved by the time the credits roll. Despite feeling empty at times and dispassionate towards its excellent ensemble for large swaths of the runtime, it’s a film that, in all honesty, remains quite hopeful. In all his genius, Anderson just makes it look incredibly easy. That’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
The film opens by barely allowing the viewer, or the narrator, to even get a breath in. Alexandre Desplat’s score begins with a sinister twinge. There’s something that feels off-kilter about everything. From the very outset, Anderson is clearly toying with the visual language his audience has come to expect from him. The film then immediately leans into hyper-stylized violence rather comically, and The Phoenician Scheme is off to the races. In shaking up circumstances in a setting that feels so familiar to us, Anderson keeps us on our toes as we prepare for another whimsical journey of emotional turmoil he’s so great at conjuring. And although the locales of this film are far-reaching, so much of it occurs in a very interior sense. The inciting incident that took place in the introduction pulls us directly into the film. But it’s the scene that follows, a father and daughter reuniting for an extended conversation, that hooks the viewer in for the rest of the runtime.
Anderson pulls his audience into the film through Liesl (an incredible and perfectly-attuned Mia Threapleton). She hasn’t seen her father, Zsa-Zsa, in years, and is all the more confused by his desire for a reunion. Here, Anderson frames Liesl ever so slightly off-center. It’s a choice that wouldn’t be much to highlight were this made by any other filmmaker. But for Anderson, who has been known for decades due to his penchant and obsession with symmetrical images, it is a striking choice. It almost feels as if Anderson is getting messy? The intentionality behind this choice becomes apparent the longer the film plays out. These choices that feel increasingly frenetic and out-of-place in an Anderson film are meant to shock us. They all occur in moments of emotional confusion or devastation. The typical visual language we have come to expect from Anderson now represents a world where these characters are merely stuck in the lives they have lived for so long. And in a film that ultimately feels like it’s all about the opportunity to change, these moments breaking away from Anderson’s perfection represent that very chance. This experimentation by Anderson isn’t just to show his audience he still has several cards still up his sleeve. It’s part of the very subtext of the film. It’s even more proof that his films have always been far more than delightful images designed to perfection.
There’s also something to be said about The Phoenician Scheme being a film that sees Anderson reckoning with himself as an artist. After all, it feels like every choice Zsa-Zsa makes in the film is made while looking back at a lifetime of past choices. The sum of all our experiences may come to a point where the dam has to break. If that’s the case, we have to hope that there’s somebody left alongside us to help pick up the pieces. What happens if we’ve become known not just to the world at large, but to those we hold dearest, as a single type of person or thing?v We have to hope that change is possible one way or another. For as much pain that’s present in The Phoenician Scheme, its core idea remains beautiful: Who we were and who we are can never define who we could be in the future. It’s yet another Wes Anderson film full of tragedy. But the possibility of redemption is captured through a uniquely profound way of viewing the world, making this film another entry into a career that’s so excitingly idiosyncratic.
Focus Features will release The Phoenician Scheme with a limited release on Friday, May 30th and expand wide on Friday, June 6th.