The Phoenician Scheme

Wes Anderson's new film The Phoenician Scheme is classic Wes Anderson, complete with a great cast delivering heightened dialogue and stylized cinematography. It stars Benicio del Toro as one of Europe's richest men, an amoral industrialist, who, along with his daughter (Mia Threapleton) and a tutor (Michael Cera), travels to convince his business partners to fund his latest venture. But where does the film rank among Anderson's past movies? Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:26Speaker 01

  Wes Anderson's new film, The Phoenician Scheme, is about classic Wes Anderson, really. For those of us who love his stuff, it gives us everything we're looking for in his idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking. It's got a great cast, delivering heightened dialogue. It's got stylized cinematography. Look, it's Wes Anderson. You know the drill. Not everyone loves what he does. We should acknowledge that, of course. But if you do, where does The Phoenician Scheme rank among all the films he's made? I'm Glen Weldon, and joining me on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour to talk about all that is Bea Parker. She's one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast. Hey, Parker.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Welcome back. Also with us is writer Chris Klemic. Hey, Chris.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  Hey, Glenn. Myself, I feel very safe.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  There we go. The Phoenician Scheme is set in the 1950s and stars Benicio del Toro as Ja Ja Corda, one of Europe's richest men and a moral industrialist.

• 1:19Speaker 04

  Normal people want the basic human rights that accompany citizenship in any sovereign nation. I don't. I don't live anywhere. I'm not a citizen at all. I don't need my human rights.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  His latest venture is a massive infrastructure project in someplace called Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia. He's got lots of business partners in this scheme, played by a series of Anderson favorites like Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, and Jeffrey Wright. What's more, he's been experiencing weird, spiritual, near-death visions, which may explain why he summoned his daughter Liesl to his side. She's played by Mia Threapleton. They have a fraught relationship. He sent her to a convent when she was five. She's now a nun in training. And Ja Ja appoints her his successor. They travel with Ja Ja's young entomology tutor, trying to convince his business partners to cough up more dough, even as they dodge repeated attempts on Ja Ja's life.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  That Tudor, by the way, is played by Wes Anderson first timer, Michael Sarah, bringing with him a sort of cosmic sense of filmmaker actor inevitability, really. The Phoenician Scheme is in theaters now. Chris, kick us off. What'd you make of it?

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Well, would it kill Wes Anderson to make a bad movie once in a while just to to give us something to talk about? He's very steady. He's he's very consistent. And I come in regretting that there isn't something more incendiary or exciting that I can say other than I basically liked it.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  I like Wes Anderson. This is a guy who has defined his own aesthetic. I'd call it inimitable if other people had not imitated it to great effect sometimes. Thinking of that Saturday Night Live horror movie Wes Anderson trailer from from a few years back.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  There will be a temptation to say like, oh, he's just iterating, right? He's not innovating. But when you create your own aesthetic that is instantly recognizable, I would argue even to people who dislike his films, or maybe haven't even even seen his films, that is a triumph. I don't think this is my favorite Wes Anderson film. But on the other hand, another unique feature of his entire filmography is I've never had one of his films go down in my estimation when I've seen it a second time. They've only ever gone up, even movies that didn't really grab me initially. My question after this one, where's the grief? Do you remember, Glenn, a certain fast food chain that used a slogan that rhymes with where's the grief?

• 3:41Speaker 01

  I see what you did there.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Because in every Wes Anderson movie, we're usually circling around to a core of loss, of regret, you know, some somber undercurrent beneath all of these wonderful jokes, visual jokes, verbal jokes, set pieces. Keith Phipps pointed this out in his review on his Substack, The Reveal, that he shares with Scott Tobias about how this Wes Anderson movie does not have a point like the balcony scene from Asteroid City, where we get a very brief but profound kind of summing up of everything that the the rest of the movie is swimming in. This film, even though it is, you know, yes, there are many of his familiar themes. There's a father daughter reconciliation. There's a sort of amoral guy, arguably, maybe becoming a slightly more more human person. But it doesn't all

• 4:26Speaker 03

  come together in that that profound, recognizable way. So I enjoyed it very much. But yeah, I'm left with that question that Wendy's asked us in 1984. Where's the grief?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  I mean, you say recognizable. Some would say human. Where's the human connection here? But what do you think, Parker?

• 4:43Speaker 02

  I mean, I thought for a Wes Anderson film, it was like right down the middle. Like, it is a very taut, like, he has a very specific aesthetic that is, um, at this point, he's like a well-oiled machine when it comes to how his world and how these films are constructed. I was gonna say, he's like a sentient corduroy shoe. Like, I get, I know what I'm getting, but it's also just like, I wanted more. It's so, like, tightly orchestrated, but also rang a bit hollow for me because there is, like, this very surface-level approach to what we were experiencing, even though, you know, there are, like, these existential questions that are hovering over this, like, very taut story.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, I think, I think going forward, I may need to recuse myself from reviewing Wes Anderson films. Because I certainly don't think they're critique-proof. I, I don't think that. I kind of feel like they might be critic-proof if the critic in question is me. I mean, I don't know. I have been reading these reviews, which are very mixed, and, you know, that's happened over the years. A lot of his reviews are mixed, and I nod my head vigorously whenever I, you know, hear from any detractor, right? I, I get what they're saying. He's mannered, he's twee, he's fussy, his films are puzzle boxes or dioramas. They're contrived, they're emotionally cold. I would say this film goes further than being cold. I think it's kind of emotionally Calvin Zero for me. There's also something a little self-satisfied in his films, right?

• 6:10Speaker 01

  A little patrician, elitist, snooty, maybe? But I am a sucker, not for necessarily these individual films, but for the pursuit that's involved. Does that make sense? Like, the construct of it all. Yeah. I mean, we both talked about it, the intellectual and aesthetic pursuit of creating this very singular world, this facade. People ding the facade. I like this little pocket universe that he and only he exists in, and when I read, you know, the critics and, and regular Joe is complaining about how there's a sameness here, I mean, Miyazaki has a sameness. Like, this is the sandbox this guy's playing in. Yeah. As you both alluded to, he's his own genre. So you get the bad dad, the disillusioned daughter, the fumbling suitor, the the mannered

• 6:53Speaker 01

  speech, the the stillness, the symmetry. Fine, but you know what? In opera, they sing a lot. So I can't. This is why I feel like I might need to just remove myself from the the critical pursuit of of reviewing these films, just because, I mean, I wouldn't place this, that said, I wouldn't place this in my top five, maybe not even my top 10. This is a comedy. I didn't laugh once. That's got to.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  I did laugh.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  I mean, I did have a big goofy grin on my face throughout. And if I had to point or try to figure out why, maybe it was that the plot device at the center of this particular film, which is visiting each investor one at a time, was so mechanical, because it's a device, right? That it doesn't even faint toward what the notion that plot grows out of character and real human interaction. It just feels like infrastructure laid over top of structure. I don't know. I just rolled over and and wanted it to to scratch my tummy, and it did.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm I'm wearing my Wes Anderson character T-shirt here, and I I noticed when I put it on that there is actually a loose thread, like hanging out to one side, which I I feel is like the kind of thing that should not exist in the Wes Anderson universe.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  I mean, I agree in that it's like pizza. You can never go wrong with this with any kind of pizza. Controversial opinion, I don't care for Grand Budapest Hotel.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  I love The French Dispatch.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  And also, I'm fully aware that I am not the target audience for Wes Anderson film as, you know, a young black woman. I go see them anyway. There is an earnestness in the pursuit. I love that he's created this kind of actor's gang that he can rely on.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Time and time again, which, I mean, side note, I'm so shocked that this is Michael Sarah's first time in a Wes Anderson film, when he fits so perfectly in that universe.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  And like, you know, a younger me was like, oh, this reminds me of him in like Youth and Revolt. This is so cool. He was the most delightful part of the film for me and the part that shone the most because. He gets to have the most fun, I think, besides maybe Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks playing basketball.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  But I can also want more. You know what? As a person who, like, I know that he is currently in his mid-century short story bag. It's like he wants to be in like John Cheever and Roald Dahl. And you know what? Live your life, but also, you know, you can have your aesthetic, but also move that aesthetic forward.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  Do you feel like he has, like, been this locked in and stuck in this, like, aesthetic spot? He can't, like, grow it?

• 9:26Speaker 03

  The mid-century thing is, is something I, I wanted to bring up, because I was trying to think about when the last time Wes Anderson made a film set in the present day was. And, and even, you know, like, the present of Rushmore or Tenenbaums.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, it still never feels like our present, right? It does feel like this hermetic world. But, you know, this film is set in the 50s. Asteroid City is in the, the same period. That might be telling in a way, right? It's just, it's another level of remove, another fantasy, right? Because it's, the, the past is, is a foreign country. You know, it's beyond all of us, right? We can't get there.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  We certainly can't. Okay, so after the break, we'll talk about some of the standout performances.

• 10:05Speaker 05

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• 11:22Speaker 01

  Welcome back. Look, there's going to be a lot of people talking about how, just was your point, Parker. Michael Sarah seems like he's always been in a Wes Anderson film. Like, he brings a bit of Wes Anderson to every project he's in.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  He's always been the caretaker at The Overlook, right? But I want to talk a little bit about Riz Ahmed in this film. This is also his first Anderson film, and that is not a pairing I saw coming, because Ahmed, to me, is a much more-

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Down-to-earth.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  I don't know, bodied, emotionally available creature of physicality. He's got such emotional vulnerability and soulfulness.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  I think that was a part that called for an actor that has his kind of presence. You know that he's a prince, he's a regal figure.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  More or less.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  I mean, I think he has the right kind of presence for that, truly. It's not a showcase for him the way something like Sound of Metal is, of course, but I think he is well deployed here.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  I actually love the brief Cranston and Hangs segment as like, these two potential investors are just a couple of jocks who want to settle this question of who's going to pay for the gap, the floating financial loss that is sort of the MacGuffin in this movie, with a little two-on-two b-ball.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  I don't know who I think it was secretly a jock, maybe in their former life, maybe Cranston, but I thought all that was very funny, and I was here for it.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  British actor Richard Iowate, he plays the terrorist leader Sergio. He was in Wes Anderson's universe before, in the short film, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, but that is another guy who, it makes me happy that I didn't realize there was a Richard Iowate-shaped hole in the Wes Anderson filmography, and that has been filled. This is a guy who feels like he belongs here. Let's talk about Mia Threapleton, because, I mean, this is the first thing I've really seen her in. She is playing a familiar Anderson type of the kind of disillusioned, laconic woman, young woman.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's kind of the Margot Tenenbaum in this, right?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  I think she, as the nun, like, I thought she was funny. I thought her face had such presence. That when you're a nun and your habit is covering everything, but like you have to have a face card to be able to do what Wes Anderson wants.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  I felt like she was really going toe to toe with Benicio del Toro character, which can like in the pantheon of disaffected page sharks who needed to grow a heart. Like this is like royal and Margot Tenenbaum. You need someone to be able to be that peril, that mirror for this formidable actor and this formidable figure. I thought that she did like a great job.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. Anderson seems to pick up a new, a new player, you know, with, with each film, even if it's someone who's like in the case of Benicio del Toro, who really, really comes into his own in the, the Anderson company with this film. He was in The French Dispatch, but in a, in a much smaller, much less verbal role.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  You know, so he was the, the guy this time. In the same way, like we picked up Tom Hanks in Asteroid City and, and carry him along. And I, you know, I love that. I hope we'll get a, another, you know, small but memorable part for him in the next Wes Anderson movie. But for me, I, I, yeah, I did not have any prior sense of Ms. Thruppleton. I hadn't seen her in anything before. I, I, I thought she was great, but I wasn't bringing in any, any baggage the way I am with Benicio del Toro, who I mean, he was in The Usual Suspects 30 years ago. I mean, dude's been around, you know, and I, I feel like he was still showing me something of him that I hadn't seen from him before in, in this.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  No, I was thinking about that when I was watching it. There was a scene where it's like Tim and Jeffrey Wright and I immediately think of Basquiat. And I was like, oh, these two like incredible character actors in a totally different world are having this moment. And I was like, I was really excited about that.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  There is a thread to this film that we haven't talked about yet, which is about Zsa Zsa's Visions of Heaven. This group of actors that we see up there as the biblical troupe. There's a prophet, there's an angel, there's Zsa Zsa's dead first wife. I was surprised by that. And at first I thought it was a bit and it kind of, it's not not a bit, right? I mean, like I think of him as a ruthlessly secular filmmaker.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Do those moments come off like a bit, or do they come off as sincere ultimately for you?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that along with Asteroid City, where there's like the acting troupe who's trying to have this like existential earnest conversation that's happening in black and white, and I feel like that's kind of happening here where

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  maybe like Anderson is trying to figure out something for himself and we're just all along for the ride. So I went along with it as like an earnest pursuit.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Even if that is where we get like an earnest Anderson, that's where we get like grief and all that, but it has to be a step removed and in black and white for him to be able to capture it and understand it.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  I feel like questions of sincerity kind of don't apply to us, Anderson, you know? I would don't think he's ever put a frame of anything that that he doesn't fully believe in on screen. The technical mastery, the aesthetic stuff like that, he means that with his whole heart. So asking, you know, whether like these little interstitial sequences that are, you know, for example, black and white in a film that's otherwise color, whether he's really bearing his soul to us, or whether he's being, you know, ironic or distant or mocking, like, I just know, I feel like he means all of it.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  The reason I'm asking about these visions of heaven is that they feed into what is, at the end of the day, a redemption arc for this main character. Who is a billionaire? He's a munitions guy. He is active in a slave trade. Is this a protagonist for today? Is this somebody we can kind of get behind? Is this supposed to be what we're supposed to get behind?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  I mean, we're kind of stuck in the world of like, thinking of like the White Lotus and Succession, where it's rich people behaving the way that they behave and we kind of like get on the bus or off it. But like, maybe that's evolving, maybe things are changing and we, and like, maybe this is like the tipping point and we're less likely to embrace these kind of characters. But I also think that's gonna, that might limit Anderson's storytelling.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it does seem like this is a bit further than we've gotten before, right? We've had wrestle grumps like, like Royal Tenenbaum. We've had

• 17:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  we've had bad guys.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  We've had bad dads aplenty. Have we had murderers?

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Have we had murderers?

• 17:47Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm thinking about where did the whole Marvel project start off? And it started with Iron Man, right? Which was a story of an arms dealer and a guy who, you know, has a, you know, forced into a moral awakening and tries to make amends by being a superhero, I guess. And, you know, in sort of predictable fashion, Zsa Zsa Korda, he does get his comeuppance. So, you know, we can ask whether that is a reflection of his own inner moral evolution or just of, you know, circumstances being imposed upon him. But again, I don't, I don't think the movie has to tell us that. I think it's OK for us to, to make our own decision about that.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and to your point, maybe what I'm reacting to is events outside the film, right? Where billionaires are acting with impunity. And that's, that doesn't seem to me like the kind of character, the kind of person who should get off, spoiler, as free as this guy gets off. Maybe that's it. Maybe, and that's not fair to the film.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  I think I, what I disagree with you about is I don't think the film lets him off, off the hook in quite the way that you're, you're suggesting.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Oh, Parker, settle, settle the difference here. Who's right?

• 18:47Speaker 02

  I think he gets what he gets. And it's more about like, like softening his heart than his wallet. And inevitably, he gets both.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying. Look, this is a very dense film. We have a lot to unpack here. There's only so much we can get to. There's this whole thread about Weasel's mother's death we haven't really touched on. Listeners, I feel like we've only just loosened the lid of the jar. Now it's your turn to tell us what you think about the Phoenician scheme. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash P C H H and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash NPR pop culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. And that brings us to the end of our show. BA Parker, Chris Klimick, thank you so much for being here.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  Thank you, Glenn.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathama and Mike Katsev and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Audio engineering was performed by Sina Lefredo and Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.