Wes Anderson's "Phoenician Scheme" Delves Deep Into His Darkest, Most Melancholic Triumph Yet

"I personally feel extremely secure," is one of the well-crafted recurring jests that Benicio del Toro delivers multiple times throughout the film. The Phoenician Scheme Wes Anderson’s most recent movie.

In the year 1950, Del Toro emerges as an unorthodox and relentless tycoon, akin to Zsa Zsa Korda, a mastermind behind technological marvels and shrewd maneuvers in global finance for personal profit. Despite frequently finding himself involved in airplane accidents only to miraculously survive, along with thwarting numerous assassination attempts where others meet their end, rumors swirl about his alleged involvement in the deaths of all three of his spouses. He combines traits reminiscent of both Charles Foster Kane and Howard Hughes.

The Phoenician Scheme , divided into the exactingly idiosyncratic narrative style that Anderson excels at, chronicles Korda’s endeavor to construct his magnum opus—a dam coupled with a water treatment plant—in a geopolitically fraught region within the Middle East.

It tracks his attempts to converse with each of his extremely quirky global investors to keep them funding the project, even though it poses significant financial risks.

At the same time, the most recent effort to eliminate him has resulted in slight neurological issues. Consequently, he teams up with one of his numerous distant offspring — the sole daughter within this group — as she accompanies him on his travels.

Introduce Liesel (played by Mia Threapleton, aka Kate Winslet’s daughter), a nun with a penchant for cigarettes and red nail polish, who remains thoroughly unimpressed by her father's efforts to win her over and designate her as the exclusive inheritor of his wealth.

Korda, always desperate to learn new things, surrounds himself with tutors, and so their team is completed by Bjorn, an oddball Scandinavian expert in insect biology played by Michael Cera, whose plot-twist tricks make him one of the funniest characters in the movie. He manages to switch between a timid, tremulous professor and a dashing hero with aplomb.

In their efforts to secure their dwindling funds and dodge government assassins, the unlikely trio meet all manner of investors: American scions with a penchant for basketball (Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston in a very funny brotherly role), French crime bosses (Mathieu Almaric, known as Marseilles Bob), and utopian urban planners (a severe Scarlett Johansson) among them. Made with Anderson’s typically droll tone, it’s often very funny and continually surprising.

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Even for Anderson fans, The Phoenician Scheme It might seem somewhat complex. This work definitely contains more explicit dark elements compared to some of his other ventures; genuine brutality is present here, discussing issues like forced labor and the worldwide danger posed by indifferent, wealthy "world-shapers."

However, I find that this very darkness gives it its voice. Anderson’s movies frequently come across as overly casual and quaint, with his stunning stylistic touches and vintage aesthetics feeling too polished or emptily matter-of-fact to carry significance or depth.

But The Phoenician Scheme doesn’t succumb to this pitfall – there runs a vein of profound sadness throughout, much like in Anderson’s finest pieces, where broken familial bonds and unfulfilled dreams form the heart of the narrative.

The bond between father and daughter stands out as most significant. The Phoenician Scheme , and Anderson offers us a quite elegant ending marked by simplicity and acceptance.

Del Toro portrays a boisterous, quick-speaking entrepreneur whose sense of morality is challenged by his outspoken daughter. She has a knack for cutting right to the heart of his vulnerabilities.

In the end, what truly matters is their ability to reconcile. Despite Zsa Zsa Korda’s lofty aspirations, it’s the bond between them that persists, as they spend time together indulging in simple activities like playing cards amidst financial hardship. Forget about earth-shattering successes.