By Drew Dietsch
| Published
At this point, you’ve probably developed an opinion about Wes Anderson as a filmmaker. If you don’t vibe with his dollhouse perspective and painterly aesthetic, there isn’t much that’s going to sway your opinion when it comes to his newest outing, The Phoenician Scheme. So, if that’s where you’re at, bye bye.
As for me, I’ve kept my eye on Anderson’s directing efforts since I’ve maintained an appreciation for his singular approach to moviemaking and storytelling. I don’t think he’s made anything that’s topped his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, even if I might have a personal affinity for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. And though I’ve found his recent efforts rewarding if fleeting, I’m happy to report that The Phoenician Scheme is a solid uptick for Anderson’s feature filmography.
The Story of The Phoenician Scheme
If you know anything about Wes Anderson’s stories, there are plenty of familiar structures and character types you’ll recognize right off the bat. We’ve got a morally dubious father figure in Zsa-zsa Korda (Benecio del Toro) who just happens to have a strained relationship with his eldest child and only daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton). In an effort to make up for his poor parenting, he’s entrusting her with his estate (on a trial basis) as he attempts to finagle a complex business deal covering many different players in the land of Phoenicia.
Extended families, rivalries, old wounds that won’t heal, and lots of other well-trod thematic ground for Wes Anderson is present in The Phoenician Scheme. It’s not going to blow anyone away that knows the kind of figurines and ideas Anderson always reconfigures in his stories. But, this flick does show that Anderson is trying to hone his particular set of skills to razor wire sharpness.
And I think he does.
Straight As a Razor
The Phoenician Scheme is expectedly funny from anyone who is on Anderson’s comedic wavelength, but the impressive part of this venture for him as a storyteller comes in the propulsive nature of the tale. The movie begins with a bang (one of my favorite laughs in any Wes Anderson flick) and structures itself as a ticking time bomb of a travel thriller. Anderson has set up similar dioramas before in The Grand Budapest Hotel or The Darjeeling Limited, but the con man/heist energy of The Phoenician Scheme gives Anderson an immediacy not as present in those films. No question this and Fantastic Mr. Fox are in closer conversation there.
It makes this one of his tightest and most efficient scripts thanks to that “no time to lose” nature. The pacing is practically relentless for anyone who criticizes Anderson’s movies for being boring still-life portraits. Anderson is still executing his one-of-a-kind approach to artificiality but in service of a story that turns his dollhouse aesthetic into an action figure fantasy.
Give Wes Anderson Another Chance
I get the feeling a lot of folks look down their noses at Wes Anderson’s film due to their aggressive artifice and kooky nature. I don’t totally discount that but I do think it’s shortsighted. Anderson, like any other filmmaker, can get caught up in certain indulgences or interests that don’t quite hit as strongly for the audience as they do for him. As much as I found rewarding about his last full feature, Asteroid City, it had the sense that Anderson was starting to get so self-reflective as to get lost in that reflection.
The Phoenician Scheme is the kind of rapid fire comedy Anderson needed to make. It feels reinvigorating and deliberately more mass appealing than Asteroid City or even his playhouse short films in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More where he was adapting more Roald Dahl.
The Phoenician Scheme should be the kind of movie for folks who want to give Wes Anderson another chance at making them laugh. It’s consistently quite silly with the right amount of heart to make it a more meaningful movie experience than you might expect.
