Wes Anderson might just be the most recognizable filmmaker out there. His trademark style has captured the hearts of many and inspired countless imitations. While the work from the middle of his career is pretty universally loved, his recent efforts The French Dispatch and Asteroid City had many thinking he was taking his style too far. The Phoenician Scheme definitely follows more in those footsteps than his older work, but I found myself enjoying this one a lot.
It's hard to describe the plot of The Phoenician Scheme, Letterboxd simply says "The story of a family and a family business." Essentially the film follows Zsa-zsa Korda, an man with immense wealth trying to put together the funds to take on a new venture. He has been victim to countless assassination attempts, so while trying to secure funding he also has his lone daughter, a nun named Liesl (Mia Threapleton), on a trial run to be the heir to his accounts.
Like his other recent efforts this is a film more tied to its themes and ideas than its narrative. For a decent bit of the early runtime I didn't really have a grasp of what was happening, and even when things started to make sense it's never fully clear what the point of everything is narratively. Thematically though, this is a film covering a lot, whether it be strained family or the fragility of masculine pride, and I found it to be quite touching. On top of being a touching watch, I found this one of Anderson's funniest films. I love Benicio del Toro in basically everything, but something about his performance here just worked on me. His character is a bit morally ambiguous but it's hard not to love him with how Anderson writes him, and the charm del Toro brings to him just made him constantly hilarious to me. I also loved Mia Threapleton. She has that dry sense of humour that Anderson uses a decent bit and nails it, giving deadpan deliveries to audacious moments that kept killing me. Michael Cera also makes his Wes Anderson debut and I loved him as well. His character has such a hilarious turn and he absolutely killed it.
Going into a Wes Anderson movie you know at the very least it will look great, and this is no different. The colours don't pop quite like some of his other stuff, but I actually enjoyed the more muted colour scheme. The sets are all absolutely magnificent, and there are some awesome props that lead to strong running gags. As always, the symmetrical cinematography looks fantastic, but along with being visually satisfying it also feels somewhat different than his other work thanks to the more muted colour scheme. One thing I always love in a Wes Anderson movie is also the musical scores from Alexandre Desplat which accompany them. This isn't a bad score by any means, but I did find it a bit underwhelming compared to some of their previous collaborations.
If you didn't care for Asteroid City I don't think this will be for you. Anderson is definitely getting weirder and weirder from a narrative standpoint, but while the style is growing I don't think he's losing the substance that makes it all worth it. This made me laugh from start to finish, and won me over a lot more than I thought it would. 4/5
Comments
Post a Comment