The Phoenician Scheme

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

[mr_rating_result]

The idiosyncratic Wes Anderson (“Asteroid City”) directs “The Phoenician Scheme.” Though it might only speak to the auteur’s fan base, it is colorful, robust, and brisk. Packed with action it is probably the most accessible Anderson film yet.

A disingenuous businessman Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) who is based in part on the real-life oil king Calouste Gulbenkian has endured multiple assassination attempts. Surviving his latest plane crash, he is inspired to reconnect with his daughter Lise, a Catholic nun (Mia Threapleton) and offer her the family duties and considerable assets in the likely event of his untimely passing. Privately however, Korda is convinced that his enemies will never succeed in their quest for his assassination.

There is crashing and banging with echoes of a Road Runner Looney Tune as if written by Roald Dahl, but thankfully, there is a story behind the hyperbole, the ultra-colorful triptych and madcap mayhem.

First, Threapleton is wonderful in her role as a devout and serious nun. The film can be seen both as a spoof and a tribute to cinema in the mode of “The Song of Bernadette.” Del Toro is also perfect as a kind of Wile E Coyote or Grinch in human form, yet he is no mere Saturday morning cartoon.

Art and the passion of painting is also emphasized by the inclusion of works by Renoir and Magritte.

The best segments of the film involve Heaven and recall Ingmar Bergman. Bill Murray is present yet again and he is impossible to miss.

While many episodes create an authoritarian centered comic strip, the want of family is pronounced here and there are sincere edges of haunt, struggle, and melancholy. The scenes have tangible poignance signaling emotion, loss, and light.

Some will see this as a meditation on family and loneliness while others may see it as merely more sardonic hijinks from a director with a gimlet eye. Like the painter Hieronymus Bosch, Anderson displays the carnival-like motion of men pressed flat within selfish color spectrums of their own design.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com