Wes Anderson’s style is nothing if not recognizable. In this way, he is, and has been, a great entry point for people seeking to analyze films rather than simply consuming them. You don’t need formal training in cinematography or production design to recognize and appreciate those aspects in Anderson’s films.
Since his stylistic elements are so tangible and meticulously crafted (and perhaps because people are tired of hearing about them), there has been a backlash. His works are criticized as all style, no substance, and no subtlety. But Anderson’s latest film, The Phoenician Scheme, shows once again that despite all the stylistic trappings, he is capable of connecting with real human emotion in a profound way.
It is helpful in this regard that The Phoenician Scheme maintains its focus on a smaller group of characters as its leads. Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) is a wealthy businessman who, after an assassination attempt, reconnects with his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton). With the hopes of naming her as the heir to his fortune, Zsa-Zsa loops her into his latest scheme to design and control transportation in Phoenicia. They are joined by Zsa-Zsa’s freshly-hired assistant, Bjorn (Michael Cera), in a cross-country journey to close the gap in funding by raising additional support from the scheme’s many partners.
The Phoenician Scheme presents us with a cornucopia of themes – morality, mortality, wealth, legacy, geopolitics. Ordinarily, a film might give us one of these ideas to chew on. But The Phoenician Scheme is more interested in the interconnections between all of these things rather than any one thing. Our concerns don’t live in a vacuum; they all feed into each other. And the film never feels muddled – it gives each of its themes its due, and resolves all of its messages in a very satisfying way.
Part of what makes the thematic material work is its level of focus. There are really only three characters here with a substantial amount of screentime – Zsa-Zsa, Liesl, and Bjorn. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Wes Anderson movie without dozens of recognizable faces, but all of these serve as cameos or single-scene showcases. These performances, though brief, make an impact – each character gets something interesting to do or a trait that makes them memorable.
Still, the real focus of the movie is the father and daughter story, which is nuanced, thoughtful, and certainly substantial. Liesl is deeply religious and intends to enter a convent while Zsa-Zsa is very wealthy and corrupt. But from an early point, the two of them begin to rub off on each other – Zsa-Zsa is already primed to think about morality and legacy after his close brush with death, and Liesl is intrigued by Zsa-Zsa’s lifestyle enough to begin engaging in some (mostly harmless) vices. Their attempts to connect to each other, while deciding what aspects of their lives they are willing to compromise, form the core of the film.
One aspect of Wes Anderson’s films that his critics cite in the “all style no substance” conversation is the heavily stylized performances he gets from his actors. But style and substance can be compatible rather than a trade-off, and indeed, Anderson’s films often contain deep and nuanced relationships and show the breadth of human emotion.
Since the Actor’s Studio takeover of Hollywood, naturalism has been the default performance mode. Naturalism gives us something we recognize, and generates empathy in the same way that seeing a friend or acquaintance suffer or struggle would generate empathy. But it isn’t the only way to generate empathy, and performances do not have to be naturalistic for us to connect with them. Anderson finds other ways to draw out our empathy for these characters – especially through humor.
This is one of Wes Anderson’s funniest films, with a similar sense of humor and frequency as The Grand Budapest Hotel. The jokes come quickly and often, and land very frequently. Some sequences serve as stylized parodic homages to classic genres or ideas. A depiction of the afterlife recalls many depictions in film history, but particularly A Matter of Life and Death. A thread of espionage, subterfuge, and cartoonist-stylized violence recalls the grand tradition of James Bond.
The Phoenician Scheme contains all the hallmarks of Anderson’s style and is unlikely to end the blowback against his work. Anderson is certainly talented enough to work in other modes – and one stunning shot near the film’s end breaks “the rules” of his cinematography in a thrilling way. Still, his unique blend of fastidious art design, stylized performances, deadpan humor, and cameos from his troupe of actors is a winning formula. And each time, he uses it to break new ground on interesting thematic material. There’s no reason to mess with a good thing.
