The Phoenician Scheme
Starring Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera
M
4/5
The latest film from writer-director Wes Anderson, The Phoenician Scheme is a surreal, deeply witty historical dark comedy.
In the early fifties, after surviving a string of assassination attempts, business tycoon Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) embarks on a madcap quest to fund his final project and appoints Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a prospective nun and his only daughter, as his sole heir.
Del Toro is both shady and endearing as Korda, a businessman who cheats and backstabs with no malice whatsoever; it’s as if he swindles his colleagues because he respects them. Threapleton (who is Kate Winslet’s daughter) is a magnetic figure of pious composure and dry wit, and the dashes of colour in Liesl’s white nun attire symbolise her growing more relaxed while working for her father.
Like the rest of Anderson’s filmography, The Phoenician Scheme features lavish staging and gorgeous cinematography, plenty of surreal charm and portentous themes delivered in emotional low-gear, but also carries a note of calculated futility.
There is little substantive tension or consequence for Korda, which the self-aware narrative pokes fun at through how absurdly unkillable he is. With the scheming, counter-scheming, wealth both enormous and fragile, explosive arguments with colourful characters and sombre black-and-white visions of holy judgement, The Phoenician Scheme stresses that the Scheme itself doesn’t matter, building to the conclusion that a simple, good life – with or without faith – is what really matters. I enjoyed the clever irony of so much conniving and bluster for a worthless goal, but the nonplussed way the plot handles the suspicious death of Liesl’s mother feels more lazy than creatively futile.
A delight for lovers of irony, intricate dialogue and stunning cinematography, The Phoenician Scheme is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
