On May 29, Wes Anderson’s new film «The Phoenician Scheme» — with the usual star cast began to be released in cinemas. The world premiere of the film took place as part of the main competition program of the Cannes Film Festival, which ended just that week. What did the American director, whose works are famous for their expressive visual style, manage to do with the film — we will tell you in the review below.
Pluses:
a good main cast, each member of which shines in their own way; Wes Anderson's expressive style hasn't gone anywhere, and this is good news for fans of the director's work; the presence of funny moments and spectacular scenes; a large number of star cameos;
Minuses:
the uneven pace of the story, which leads to curiosity changing to boredom and vice versa; due to the peculiarities of the local acting, some may not feel emotions where they were supposed to; the failed final act with Cumberbatch; most of the star cameos are unjustified;
«The Phoenician Scheme»
Genre adventure and spy comedy
Director Wes Anderson
Starring Benicio Del Toro, Mia Tripleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jeffrey Wright
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb, official website
The fifties of the last century. The obscenely wealthy tycoon Anatole «Ja Ja» Corda escapes death after another assassination attempt. Soon he decides to reconnect with his daughter Liesl and make her the heir to his financial empire, although he has nine sons, all younger than the 20-year-old.
Liesl had planned to devote herself entirely to serving God, but Anatol involves her in a very ambitious project involving the infrastructure of the country of Phoenicia. The American government is trying to prevent its implementation in every possible way, and it requires considerable effort, including new agreements with investors. The rich man also hires Norwegian entomologist Bjorn Lund as his secretary. The curly-haired boy has successfully passed a polygraph and is ready to work. And so this unlikely company is about to have a lot of exciting, but still dangerous adventures.
Those who are well versed in the industry know that Wes Anderson is an undeniably talented and self-sufficient filmmaker. His movie language is definitely about style. It’s about the distinctive author’s handwriting, both visual and narrative, that is inherent in this particular creator. You can’t confuse him with anyone else.
In the end, Wes Anderson has long since become not so much a mark of quality — the director’s bizarre creations are impossible to evaluate objectively, and you can either openly hate them or sincerely love them — but a well-recognized brand with an army of loyal fans who understand and relate to Anderson’s cinema.
But there’s a flip side to this coin, and it’s not even the rest of the moving picture art fans, i.e. those who are indifferent or hate Anderson. The fact is that his trademark perfectionist aestheticism has long since turned into self-repetition, which, with one or another reservation, wanders from one film to another without offering any fundamentally fresh approach. Only the lazy would fail to mention the symmetry of the frame, pastel colors, conscious theatricalization, or the brightness of the scenery when it comes to Wes Anderson’s cinematography. And this is a telling nuance.
«The Phoenician Scheme» is no exception — the beautifully constructed mise-en-scene with its famous symmetry and thoughtful color filling has not disappeared. And they coexist with a peculiar sense of humor, also inherent in the director’s films.
However, the fact that he understands perfectly well how to execute a particular shot, how to arrange the actors in it. How many A-list stars to cram into another ridiculous scene, or what size the diamonds on the wallpaper should be — does not make the movie itself more interesting.
And this is an important factor. Despite the fact that the film (this synonym seems to be the most appropriate here) has the features of a light-hearted genre film, in particular a comedy (again, in the context of Wes Anderson’s cinema), there is a rather sad father-daughter storyline that clearly emerges here, which requires an obvious audience response. However, it’s hard to hope for it when you demand absolutely emotionless performances from the actors. How can the audience get those emotions?
Local comedy is not exactly funny either: sometimes the local jokes work, sometimes they don’t. Needless to say, one of the funniest components is the outstanding makeup of the actors, including the barely recognizable Bill Murray (oh my God) and Benedict Cumberbatch.
There are plenty of spectacular scenes in «The Phoenician Scheme» — suffice it to recall the opening scene, when the billionaire’s private jet crashes and falls into (important!) a cornfield. There’s enough inventiveness here, the scene does an excellent job of setting a mood, charging the viewer, tuning into a certain wave. But later, the inconsequential chatter of the characters, who monotonously babble on and on about cute nonsense, brings this mood to naught, and it is replaced by boredom. Then — some kind of outburst again, and then boredom again. The final act is beyond criticism.
In general, the film looks extremely uneven in its rhythm — for every energetic Michael Cera, who knows martial arts as well as anyone else Scott Pilgrim, Anderson thinks that there are not so witty as he thinks, occasional appearances of Tom Hanks or Scarlett Johansson with a braid a la Yulia Tymoshenko. Superstars, out of the blue, simply exist for the sake of the big names on the poster. For every risky flight and, accordingly, minus one grenade (don’t ask), there are a dozen boring conversations about nothing.
As a result, after the session, you can’t quite decide whether you had fun and got distracted or whether you were tired.
All fans of the cult director should pay attention to this new release, as they should definitely be satisfied. Everyone else can safely pass it by. Because no matter how hard Benicio Del Toro’s character tries to pull off his «Phoenician scheme», the movie of the same name is one hundred percent based on the well-established scheme of the famous puppeteer Wes Anderson.
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