‘You’re drunk. On three beers...’
I’m really trying to find a new way of explaining why I dislike Wes Anderson’s work so strongly, but if he can’t be arsed not to make the same film over and over, why should I not churn out the same response every time…
As with every Anderson film since The Grand Budapest Hotel, the plot here absolutely doesn’t matter. Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), a charismatic but ruthless business tycoon who keeps surviving plane crashes (sigh), reunites with his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), in order to… who cares. It doesn’t matter. Just writing this plot description is boring me to tears, so imagine sitting through it for 101 punishing minutes. There are distracting cameos from Tom Hanks, Willem Dafoe and Richard Ayoade, whilst the considerable comic talents of Michael Cera and Bryan Cranston are utterly wasted.
Legendary film critic Pauline Kael famously argued that the so-called ‘Auteur Theory’ (the idea that the director is the primary creative force—the “author”—behind a film, much like a novelist is the author of a book) is not so much an example of a filmmaker expressing their individuality through a continued use of a certain tone or aesthetic, but rather someone repeating the one good idea that they have had over and over again with diminsihing returns. While I don’t think this is always true (think Scorsese, Kubrick, Coppola, etc), in the case of Wes Anderson, it absolutely is. The Phoenician Scheme is exactly the same as Asteroid City or The French Dispatch, or Isle of Dogs – cartoonish characters trying and failing to convey something of depth set to the backdrop of symmetrical set design and a quirky soundtrack. It’s the smugness. And the fact that none of this is funny, even though Anderson clearly believes that it is.
Now, at this point, it is clear that these films aren’t for me. So, why do I watch them? Well, firstly, to paraphrase Belle from A Christmas Carol, for the love of him he once was. I love loads of Anderson’s earlier work. Secondly, because there is still the nagging feeling that he has something interesting to say. I really enjoyed his recent foray into the work of Roald Dahl for Netflix, for example.
Anyway, let’s wrap this up. If you like Anderson’s other late-era stuff, then maybe you will like this. What is certain is that The Phoenician Scheme is certainly not going to win over any new fans. Change the station, Wesley.
