Wes Anderson is an auteur working on his own level and landscape, with nobody being able to come close to his artistry and style. Lately, people have been hammering down on him because of his eccentric productions and precision, or how it has been described: “Wes Anderson being Wes Anderson”. Those critiquing his latest output refer to it as if he is doing the same thing. I think that assessment is improper. His sets have indeed become more detailed, and the specificity of his scenarios is also quite zany. However, as he’s aged, Anderson has become more introspective and contemplative. His last three films demonstrate this evolution distinctly (“The French Dispatch”, “Asteroid City”, and his latest, “The Phoenician Scheme”), in which he explores life, death, art, and the fleeting nature of time.
Anderson suppresses his characters’ sadness through deadpan dialogue and introspective quips; between the zany and charismatic lies some melancholy that he is not afraid to tap into, especially now. He has always had that sneaky trick in his arsenal. Yet, now it is more evident than before, with ethical and existentialist commentary being placed amidst the ever-evolving canvas of one of the most creative and unique filmmakers working today. “The Phoenician Scheme” adopts elements from his beginnings and the contemplation of this new stage of his career, working between the warmth of hope and the coldness of desolation and regret. It is a comedy, as most of Anderson’s works are. Each joke and gag carries a quiet sadness, only lifted once the characters confront the consequences of their actions.
An Industrialist Luckily Escapes Death
The film begins with a glimpse of death and the bleak, colorless beyond, a motif that Anderson uses throughout this puzzle-like story. One of the wealthiest men in the world, a sketchy industrialist and entrepreneur, Anatole “Zsa Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro, in a role meant only for him, and he is flawless in it), is constantly targeted by the world’s governments and rival billionaires’ hired assassins. The most recent attempt involves a bomb exploding on his plane, where he slightly survives after landing it in a cornfield. During the time he was pronounced dead and his shocking return to the living, Korda went to the other side. There are no lively and well-selected color palettes there. Everything is monochrome.
The man, worshiped by many and dismissed by others, is put on trial—a reckoning with his life, whether this is truly the end, the last life of this savvy, cold cat, or he gets to close out his book of life through a redemption arc. Stories of Korda are shared with the jury and those listening. We in the audience are also part of this, with Anderson doing a quick fourth-wall break on two separate occasions during these scenes. Upon gaining consciousness and surviving yet another assassination attempt, he gets an epiphany. While holding a non-vital organ in his hands and his face all bruised, Korda heads to his lavish home to plan out his “curtain closer,” the self-titled scheme.
It is a very detailed, cunning, and challenging scheme to hatch. It will require substantial investments from some associates, which they wish to renegotiate. But he does not want to go through this alone. Korda wants an heir to his estate, someone to look over his trinkets, holdings, businesses, and plans. He chooses his estranged daughter, a pipe-smoking, snarky nun named Liesl (a breakout Mia Threapleton who makes every scene her own). She is the only girl out of his nine children and the most mature. Her arrival and Threapleton’s appearance on the screen come with a cineliterate connotation. As Liesle arrives at the Korda mansion, she sits down awaiting her father.
Wes Anderson Goes Back to His Roots with His Later Stage’s Melancholy
Anderson covers the main hall in shadows, opposite to the other rooms in the house, which have a more lively pattern. The minor detail comes in the skull lying on the table in front of her. Carl Theodor Dreyer’s masterpiece “The Passion of Joan of Arc” comes immediately to mind. The search for grace may not be in play at this point in the narrative. Later on, that element will be in play. That is why Anderson lays out hints and easy-to-miss references from that 1928 masterpiece in between the various plot threads. Liesl is curious to know the reason why Korda requested her presence. But Liesl’s interest lies in uncovering who killed her mother—an answer she’s sought since childhood. Rumor has it that Korda killed (or had killed) her, which he rejects and blames her uncle, Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), for it.
A conflict between them pervades the film’s entirety. Korda’s ignorant, greedy, and uncaring antics match Liesl’s willingness to understand her father’s behavior, the grace she holds, and the fury she withholds. But even though Liesl disapproves of this “scheme, at least some part of it, Korda makes sure to punish the man who killed her loving mother. This is all for the sake of gaining her daughter’s love and trust. “The Phoenician Scheme” has a connection with one of Anderson’s early works, “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Flawed fathers tend to their wounds to try to reconnect with their distanced children. Korda is more cruel and colder than Gene Hackman’s Royal Tenenbaum. The two intersect in their reappearance after contemplation and existential deliverance. A brief reflection on legacy and memory prompts them to seek out those they had left behind.
Del Toro and Hackman carry a begrudging expression on their faces, one that conveys more with a look than a sentence. Yet each time they speak their mind, aligned with their heart’s desire for reconciliation, it has a duality. Anderson has them expel their grievances through arrogance at first, particularly seen when Korda says he does not need his human rights after Liesl asks him about his passport, and a brutal sincerity as they come close to reaching a state of clarity, where they leave their past selves behind for a new start, not absolved of their mistakes but using them as rememberings of lost time spent without love and devotion.
Legacy in the Backbone of Wes Anderson’s Latest
At the film’s center is the thorny father-daughter relationship, painted by Anderson with his signature flair and obsessive detail. However, this time, each movement feels more tactical than the usual tricks he pulls. In this initial segment of “The Phoenician Scheme,” Anderson focuses more on the actors’ faces than the camera movements by the swift cinematographer Bruno Debonel (first time collaborating with Anderson). Each cut goes straight to Del Toro or Threapleton. As the film goes on, the vistas expand, yet the two leads remain up and center, with their inexpressive expressiveness leading the way.
Following Korda and Liesl’s tense negotiation, the film splits into titled segments. Each one is a step in the elaborate Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme. If that plan works, it will set them comfortably for the next 150 years. Things come to a halt after American spies disrupt the market and fracture “the gap–the amount the powerful investors were going to pay for this project to come to fruition. So, the two, alongside Korda’s new tutor, Bjorn (Michael Cera), travel to meet the investors to “renegotiate” the deal before it is too late.
Dedicated to his father-in-law, who also had plans and papers in shoe boxes like Korda, “The Phoenician Scheme” has legacy on its backbone, not only Anderson’s, who joins an array of veteran filmmakers that recently made projects talking about such (Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada”, amongst others). But that of those who are running out of time to make amends, achieve their goals, and erase their regrets. Life is full of mistakes, errors, and failures in all aspects. We must all confront them to move forward. Some people have woes and regrets so difficult to move past that they spend their time contemplating without taking action. That is where Korda lies. He has achieved everything except his “magnum opus.” Yet took him various encounters with death to perceive that there is indeed an end to all of this.
A Crafty, Creative Filmmaker Refining His Style with Age
“I, myself, feel very safe,” Korda uses as a shield. However, the encounters with the void take a vast toll on him at this stage of his life, to the point where he allows ghosts from the past to reenter his life once again. He realizes that the splendor and riches are not going to keep his name alive. The memory of his existence and soul will live in the hearts and minds of those whom he holds close or impacted. Time, and the constant fracture of cinema’s future, has Wes Anderson plotting and pondering about his next move. He has spent the last few years working on pictures that comment on artistry while encapsulating a feeling that everybody senses.
“The French Dispatch” was an ode to writers while exploring loneliness and abandonment. “Asteroid City” honored the complexity of the theater as it explored grief and the ways we become lost when we lose a person we love. And now, “The Phoenician Scheme,” which highlights actors during an exploration of legacy and time running out. Even if basketball scenes, constant airplane crashes, violence, and the deadpan comedy all combine for great laughs, before and after those scenes, an existential quip or image appears, all relating to the limitations and emotional expansiveness in life. It makes you worry, think over your doubts, regret, and pandemonium, unlike any other Anderson film. However, despair is not the face of the story, even in the visits to the other side. Anderson remains hopeful that people, even Korda, can change their ways before it is too late.
A late-scene nod to Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” swaps dread for hope, transforming death into an embrace instead of a void. Switching the original image’s meaning, Anderson gives Korda, Liesl, and us watching a way into warmth instead of bitter coldness that sends chills down our spine in the vast nothingness. You feel the darkness, yet the light holds you in an embrace, keeping you safe and sound for that very encounter with death. By just reading the synopsis or seeing the initial images, you would never guess that “The Phoenician Scheme” would be this reflective and emotional.
Anderson isn’t repeating himself—he’s refining his style with age, evolving while staying unmistakably himself. He is carving out his style to remain with his signature yet have a different look and texture, one that comes with experience and age. As with many of Anderson’s films, this one deepens with each viewing, emotionally and thematically. “The Phoenician Scheme” is no exception. It isn’t just “Wes Anderson being Wes Anderson”—it’s Anderson aging, evolving, and daring to reflect on his legacy, just as his characters do.
