Wes Anderson's greatest films often centered on the humanity and strength of its flawed characters within absurd situations. One of his early great masterworks is "The Royal Tenenbaums," which had a dysfunctional family trying to remain functional with a sick patriarch making some amends (that film has the benefit of carrying Gwyneth Paltrow's finest acting job). Lately, Anderson has gone off the cartoonish deep end in films as disparate in tone to his earlier films such as the grandly hysterical and luscious "The Grand Budapest Hotel" to the almost incomprehensible rat-a-tat-tat dialogue of "The French Dispatch" or the cornball witticisms of "Asteroid City" (a film I still feel started a whole lot better than it ended). There is a marvelous, sumptuous beauty to "The Phoenician Scheme" in that it is self-contained and quite precious yet there is a fundamental humanity to one of its characters, a young nun, that elevates it above its precious cartoonish staging. It also contains quite a few laughs and many scenes that will get to your funny bone in retrospect.
Benicio Del Toro is the amoral antihero with some sort of glimmer of a heart of gold 1950's industrialist Zsa Zsa Korda. This guy has suffered countless assassination attempts and, each time, he is up in Heaven bearing witness to his sins (and his own grandmother doesn't know who he is). Each time, he makes it back to Earth and makes some changes. Korda's latest escape from death is in a single-engine plane and it is so close to death that the international papers and TV stations report him dead until he shows up and asks if someone can place one of his severed organs back in his body! Korda already wishes to make amends, and that includes placing his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton, Kate Winslet’s daughter) as his sole beneficiary to his empire if he one day, you know, doesn't survive an attempted assassination. Bjorn (Michael Cera), Korda's cordial personal assistant, tutor and quasi-entomologist, travels with Korda and the uncertain yet intrigued Liesl to visit hopeful business partners in a Phoenician business "scheme" that involves not employing slave labor. Whatever it is, nothing screams ethical about Korda or his business practices or his alleged partners who will only contribute 50 percent?
I am not very savvy when it comes to business or numbers and I do not watch Wes Anderson's films for intrinsic logic when it comes to such matters. I look for his wild and intricate production design and eccentric performances given by usually straight actors confined to a world that doesn't appear to exist (yeah, that goes double for Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston as brothers who can play some mean basketball). Del Toro is made for this wild material and he has this curious habit of never quite making eye contact with anyone, except his daughter Liesl (who may not be his daughter and Korda may or may not have murdered her mother). An absurd mystery wrapped inside an absurd riddle. Major kudos to Mia Threapleton as a nun with definite religious convictions who has to contend with some atheistic characters. She carries a jewel-encrusted dagger and she likes to smoke (not your typical nun). Also noteworthy is Michael Cera who fits beautifully and snugly in the Anderson world as a young, harmless man who has a deep affection for Liesl. Last but not least is Benedict Cumberbatch as Uncle Nubar who has a long beard worthy of Tolstoy.
"The Phoenician Scheme" is wild yet understated and a cartoon of extreme observations and extreme characters. None of them seems to inhabit the real world yet that is a plus for Anderson who has gone on a loopy ride of his own making since "Grand Budapest Hotel." It is all underscored by Del Toro's change in temperament as Korda who is willing to give it all up (how often do you want to survive assassination attempts) and Threapleton's consistently challenged dogma and willingness to accept Korda. Just don't ask me about the business deals.
