REVIEW: ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Plays To Wes Anderson’s Strengths

The Phoenician Scheme, the latest charming oddity from the mind of director Wes Anderson and co-creator Roman Coppola, is very safe, thankfully. Anderson is renowned for constantly being outside the box with his stories, characters, dialogue, and settings, yet he always plays within his own distinctly definitive playbox. This is deeply to the benefit of The Phoenician Scheme. The movie has its moments of density, but Anderson’s style is so well-trodden that the groove is easy to sink into. And still, it feels fresh and original despite it being so clearly a Wes Anderson film.

The core of The Phoenician Scheme is volleyed back and forth between Benicio Del Toro as the floundering titan of business, Zsa-Zsa Korda, and Mia Threapleton, his estranged Liesl-turned-nun, whom he has summoned to name his sole heir, on a provisional basis. While Threapleton is a relative newcomer to film acting, she falls perfectly into place in Anderson’s world.

She keeps up with Del Toro spectacularly as the two rattle off complicated dialogue with complicated pacing and blocking. It’s unusual for a movie about a severe capitalist and amoral individual to leave said man feeling like a character worthy of empathy, but the oddity of it all manages to tear down those barriers and make their relationship emotionally satisfying.

The titular scheme involves a series of incomplete enterprises Korda is trying to complete despite a massive gap and deeply unwilling business partners from across the fictional country of Phoenicia. The plot is a tad difficult to follow—the cast of secondary and tertiary characters is large, the babble is often quite technical and sometimes mumbled, and much of the place-setting is done through title cards, small signs, and rapid dialogue. But the specifics hardly matter. The gist of the scheme is straightforward enough that each step flows with the next, and it all makes just enough sense.

The secondary and tertiary characters of The Phoenician Scheme build out a hilarious world.

The secondary and tertiary characters are less well-developed than Korda and Liesl but are still nearly all satisfying components of each scene. Michael Cera’s Bjorn is the third most important character in the movie, and his ridiculous accent and demeanor work like a charm every time he speaks a word or moves a muscle. Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jeffrey Wright all dominate their short appearances, while Riz Ahmed, Scarlett Johansson, Hope Davis, Mathieu Amalric, and so many others satisfactorily fill The Phoenician Scheme with laughs and bewilderment.

This movie is quite funny, using both irony and direct humor well. Repeated lines get funnier, and the physical comedy shines from the start. The Phoenician Scheme is also completely up to Anderson’s typical standard of excellence for set design. Every scene features a new diorama to inhabit, filled with color, props, and costumes that stand out just the right amount for every moment.

Along with the constantly moving camera position, the settings allow the movie to play with perspective and size in continuously visually interesting ways. Typically, in a Wes Anderson film, every aspect is more concerned with aesthetics than with betraying any moral or thematic quality. The dialogue does most of that well on its own.

While a few scenes are weaker than others, every moment of The Phoenician Scheme is building towards one of three main plot questions: how Korda will finance the completion of his project, who is constantly trying to assassinate him, and who killed Liesl’s mother?

How the questions are answered is more important than what the answers are.

The answers to any given question are far less interesting than the scenarios that play out trying to get them answered and the constant arguments that complicate each one. Korda, Liesl, and even Bjorn grow enough throughout the movie, each in their own way. Their shticks never grow stale because the characters are always changing little by little with each new experience and all of the time they’re spending together. Their influence on one another is lovely to watch.

The Phoenician Scheme is, without a doubt, as odd a movie as any Wes Anderson production. But it’s approachable. The consistent humor and visual language quickly nullify the complexity of its plot and dialogue. You know exactly what’s going on at all times, even when you’re not sure exactly what’s going on.

This is slightly at the expense of the secondary and tertiary characters—the movie would quickly become unwieldy if there were too many long threads to pull across every single faction in this movie. The Radical Freedom Militia Corps quickly proves that here. But with strong centerpiece characters, the rest of the cast gets to round out The Phoenician Scheme into a lovely Wes Anderson movie.

The Phoenician Scheme is playing now in select theaters with a wide release June 6th.