Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

Wes Anderson is nothing if not singular, unique, a director who long ago became an instantly recognizable brand. You need take only one step into a cinema universe to know that it’s his. No one else makes movies even remotely like his.

He is also remarkably consistent. To any extent that he varies, he simply moves from good to delightful and back. Sometimes, the over-reliance on detailed dioramas for his production design is a distraction from the story he is ostensibly telling. Sometimes, the design and story work perfectly in tandem, as in 2023’s Asteroid City, which I found to be his most delightful film since 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom. In fact, I was so taken with Asteroid City that this new film, The Phoenician Scheme, suffers a bit by comparison. I do wonder if anyone who hasn’t seen Asteroid City might be more inclined to enjoy The Phoenician Scheme. That indeed seemed to be the case with the companion I saw the film with today.

I just didn’t find the story to be as compelling. Sure, the opening sequence is an attention-grabber: Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) is experiencing the latest in a long line of assassination attempts, during which a copassenger on a plane is blown in half. Of course, being a Wes Anderson film, this is done with a trick of editing and set decoration, with a quick flash and cut to the passenger left in his seat only from the waist down, with a large splatter of blood on the wall behind him. It’s noteworthy that there is more violence in this than any Wes Anderson film before it, giving it a distinct flavor even in the context of his aesthetic. But it’s still all done with a sense of on-set practical effects, like an ornately staged play on camera.

The Phoenician Scheme has separate parts that are far more interesting than the film is on the whole. Korda is a morally dubious and wildly resilient character, surviving assassination attempts so many times that he now takes it for granted—both the continued attempts on his life, and his “habit” of surviving them. What I can’t quite decide is how well Benicio Del Toro fits into Wes Anderson’s universe. He plays Korda with a gravelly American accent, which is both impressive and the source of some cognitive dissonance if you’ve seen him in many other films.

Broadly speaking, The Phoenician Scheme focuses on a father-daughter relationship, between Korda and a 21-year-old nun named Liesl (Mia Threapleton, Kate Winslet’s 24-year-old daughter). Anderson stages his scenes so meticulously, it’s tempting to find the performances of his actors lacking in some way. On the contrary, by and large they are impressive in the context of these unusual demands. Things like camera position and blocking are far more important in Wes Anderson films than in most others, making it sometimes feel like diorama positioning is more important than nuance. Every character in these movies stands very still and delivers a deadpan performance—and still, Del Toro and Threapleton offer surprisingly credible deliveries as estranged family members.

The most delightful performance is that of Michael Cera, who, without spoiling anything, gives two different performances as the same character. He’s perfectly cast and a perfect fit for Anderson; it makes you wonder why he hasn’t been in a bunch of Anderson’s films already. Beyond these three, once again we get a cavalcade of stars in bit parts, some of them shockingly brief: Tom Hanks (who had a larger part in Asteroid City), Bryan Cranston (ditto), Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, Riz Ahmed, Hope Davis, F. Murray Abraham, even Bill Murray. Willem Dafoe is onscreen for literally a matter of seconds, you could check the time on your watch and miss him. One of The Phoenician Scheme’s minor wrinkles is the widely varied nature of how well cast these actors are in the parts they play—Jeffrey Wright is amazing in almost anything, but not so much here; Benedict Cumberbatch completely disappears in his part, both physically and through performance. The tiny part Bill Murray plays is an effectively clever joke unto itself.

The plot here, though, was the thing I found difficult to lock into. Korda plays an unscrupulous industrialist meeting different investors in turn to convince them to help fill the gap of a budget shortfall—for what, I could never quite retain. It had something to do with using slave labor in Phoenicia (hence the title), and provides fodder for Liesl to judge Korda’s moral shortcomings, even as she considers his offer to make her sole heir of his estate—why, when he has nine other children, all of them sons, is never quite clear, even though she immediate asks him directly: “Why?” He brushes such questions aside, evidently Anderson’s means of doing the same. It does allow her, however, to accompany him with all his visits with investors, allowing for a succession of very Andersonian, if unusually but cleverly violent, set pieces.

I am not the father of a daughter, so there could be some lack of relatability for me there. The Phoenician Scheme has a definite arc for these two characters, giving them far more dimension, both individually and in relation to each other, than you might expect. The plotting is so complex that it requires a lot of setup and exposition, and yet most of the time you just marvel at the artistry of how every scene is designed and framed. Wes Anderson is a true original, and so is this film, even among his own filmography. There’s just also a bit of unevenness in execution, particularly in both the story editing and the casting. I could argue that Michael Cera’s performance alone is worth the price of admission, though, and Threapleton’s comes close as well. Del Toro didn’t quite compel me as much here, and he’s in nearly every scene. This makes The Phoenician Scheme somewhat of a mixed bag, but on average a fine time at the movies.

*Hey I’m going to start icing my wine in my bathroom’s bidet too!*

Overall: B