The Phoenician Scheme opens on board a private plane. It’s 1950 and we are somewhere ‘high above the Balkan flatlands’. One passenger is Anatol Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro). It’s safe to say that if there’s one thing that is utterly watchable about this film, it’s Del Toro’s face: those sleepy, sexy eyes combined with facial features that have grown more crumpled and expressive with time, make him a mesmerising and alluring screen presence.
Whether that is enough to keep you on board for the 105 minutes of Wes Anderson’s latest venture (which he also wrote and produced), appearing in Cannes in competition, probably depends on how much you love Anderson’s oeuvre and how forgiving you are of his flimsy tales.
Korda is a ruthless and unscrupulous businessman who is the target of numerous assassination attempts either at the hands of business rivals or governments, or both. When his plane goes down, Korda decides it’s time to prepare for the future of his empire. He’s had three wives and ten kids, only one of them a girl. This young woman is Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a novice who was brought up in a convent and who is as pious and austere as her father is extravagant and expansive – at least, that’s how she starts out.
Threapleton and Del Toro make a nice double act, and this father-daughter relationship is one of the film’s strong points. Liesl makes her appearance at the same time as Bjorg (Michael Cera), a Norwegian insect expert who has been brought in to teach Korda’s boys. He has the hots for Liesl and may not be all that he seems, despite having taken a polygraph test during his interview.
This trio set out on a quest, Korda seeking funds for his Phoenician scheme, which involves dams and trains and canals. The film is divided into chapters, each one taking them to meet business partners in different parts of the world. Anderson calls on his usual host of stars to appear in small but entertaining cameos, including Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric and Scarlett Johansson.
Richard Ayoade makes a pleasing appearance as the leader of a rebel group that lives in the jungle and fights capitalist inequality, while Rupert Friend plays a government agent intent on bringing down Korda. Benedict Cumberbatch is Liesl’s Uncle Nubar – ‘he’s my father’s son’ explains Korda, making their animosity clear. Cumberbatch is all ridiculous fake eyebrows and giant beard, those dazzling peepers ringed with silent-film-baddie eyeliner. As Zsa Zsa’s nemesis, the actor seems to be having a whale of a time.
Like his previous film Asteroid City, some of the action takes place in colour and some in black and white, but in this case the latter represents the Pearly Gates, as it did in Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death. The black-and-white scenes contain another bevy of stars, including Bill Murray, possibly as God (which I suppose he sort of is in Wes Anderson universe). Suffice to say, A Matter of Life and Death did life and death, and in between, better.
As with many of Anderson’s films, there is a lot to look at: there are ingenious set designs and costumes, a meticulous attention to the minutest detail. And there are some nice touches, such as Liesl’s ‘jewel-encrusted rosary as she gradually eschews her calling and embraces secular life. ‘You could still believe in God if you want,’ says her father.
However, there is also a nagging sense (one frequently felt when watching an Anderson movie) that actors of this calibre should be given something more to do with their talents. Luckily, the principal trio add a little emotional meat to this ridiculous story’s flaky bones, and of course Del Toro reliably carries the film to its neat and predictable end, but alas Anderson’s film just doesn’t soar.
The Phoenician Scheme is released in the UK on May 23
