'The Phoenician Scheme': Wes Anderson's Roadrunner Movie

The jury is still out on Wes Anderson. After 30 years of almost unparalleled artistic and critical success, you'd think it'd be a done deal. No dice. Something about 'all style, no substance', repeating stories, lacking emotionality, something or other. If that's where you're at with a man simply refusing to adhere to a cinema of ever-devolving grey sludge, then the door is there, but for those enticed by his twee exteriors and deceptively heartbreaking stories, then 'The Phoenician Scheme' is another in a long line of travelogues to another world, where artifice is God and an A-lister is hiding around every corner. The main difference this time? Wes has been fiddling with things.

Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) is a successful European businessman who makes money in arms trades and weapons contracts worldwide. The trouble is that he can't seem to help almost getting assassinated. Foreign governments hate him for dodging their tariffs, circumventing their tax systems and just all around being a gnat they can't get rid of, so, in an act of desperation, they try to sabotage Korda's most ambitious project to date: The Phoenician Infrastructure scheme. Scared to lose his fortune, and in a desperate attempt to save the project, Korda 'hires' his daughter, Liesl (Mia Threaplton), a nun about to take her vows, to take over if he were to die and, together, they try to fix the sabotage before it destroys everything.

To simplify, because the plot is quite confusing and hard to keep track of at times, this is Anderson's Roadrunner movie. Only difference is Wes has to make his Wiley Coyote a belligerently bearded Benedict Cumberbatch. All of the patented quirkiness that you're used to is here, from Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston being basketball aficionados, to Richard Ayoade playing a communist revolutionary; there's no time to be bored, even if you're not entirely sure what's going on because the absurdity comes at such a wicked pace, especially with that front three of Zsa-Zsa, Liesl and Bjorn (Michael Cera). Their chemistry is stop-start, blunt and oh-so-funny, but Michael Cera is truly the masterstroke of the entire film. That he'd never been in a Wes film before is a surprise, given his manically anxious energy seems to fit perfectly, and he slots in here seamlessly, delivering one of the most memorable supporting performances in any film this year.

This is still one tough nut to crack emotionally, though, and its hard shell exterior will be enough to leave many people cold to the woes of a distant father trying to be a parent for once in his life by giving his daughter a jewelled pipe. Repeated dream sequences during which you can assume Zsa-Zsa dies and then comes back to life hint towards a massive spiritual awakening, as God puts him on trial (Bill Murray, no, literally). Conversely, Liesl begins to drink, 'flirt with men', and take on worldly treasures. One finds God, one strays far away, and Anderson finds an acceptable meeting point in the middle for a fulfilling conclusion, even if you aren't exactly welling up with tears.

So what you're left with is a movie about an atypical loner father on the verge of dying, finally trying to reconnect with his outsider family. Flashy, hilarious, symmetrical, all over the place, and for some, a hollow affair. I think we'd call that a Wes Anderson movie, no? And a great one at that.