Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme is a work of art
This year’s Cannes opener is the latest Wes Anderson feature, The Phoenician Scheme. It’s his second time opening the festival, cementing his status as one of the few filmmakers alive who can draw a crowd based on their name alone.
Yet, nearly 30 years since his first film, he remains divisive: to some, his work is all style and no substance; to others he’s a genius whose filmography is worthy of the many exhibitions and books dedicated to it. So, which argument does his new film bolster?
Benicio Del Toro and Wes Anderson team up again
Benicio Del Toro, who previously worked with Anderson on The French Dispatch, stars as Zsa-zsa Korda, a wealthy businessman who barely survives the latest attempt on his life. Realising his various enemies could soon catch up with him, he appoints his estranged daughter, a nun named Liesl (Mia Threapleton), as his sole heir. He also enlists her for his most ambitious project, the building of mass infrastructure in the fictional country of Phoenicia.
Over the course of 12 films, Anderson’s work has become a style of its own. To some detractors, this amounts to making the same films over again. But while he does stick to his stylistic blueprint of bold colours and symmetrical framing, there are small rebellions within this film that make for a delightful contrasts with his universe.
His best storytelling surrounds tales of family, both biological and found, so it’s no surprise that the heart of The Phoenician Scheme comes from the father-daughter journey. Like the late Gene Hackman’s Royal Tenenbaum, Del Toro is a patriarch propelled by his own achievements, yet ignorant of the emotional damage inflicted on his family. He’s forced to face this through Threapleton’s magnificent Liesl, the kind of stoic female lead the filmmaker writes so well.
The pair embody the film’s most profound debate: whether Korda’s millions can be called success if it means he has missed out on being a father. A cavalcade of familiar faces appear, all of whom are wonderfully absurd in their respective roles. Scarlett Johansson seems so at ease with this style of deadpan comedy, while Michael Cera makes a fantastically absurd debut that makes you wonder why he’s never worked with Anderson before.
To call The Phoenician Scheme ‘just another Wes Anderson film’ would be to overlook the work of an artist who seems forever fascinated by the dynamics of family. Having become a father himself in 2016, this is a welcome return to the kind of personal storytelling his fans adore.