Wes Anderson constructs his movies with the precision of a master thief plotting an elaborate heist, and thus it’s fitting that he turns his attention to a grand criminal-industrial enterprise with The Phoenician Scheme.
Arriving in theaters nationwide on June 6, the writer/director’s latest gem (co-conceived with Roman Coppola) is a meticulous espionage-y adventure that’s part Mission: Impossible and part dad-daughter drama, all of it filtered through Anderson’s incomparable aesthetic and narrative vision.
With Benicio Del Toro giving a career best-performance as Zsa-zsa Korda, an infamous global wheeler-dealer who’s renowned for surviving plane-crash assassination attempts (the sixth such attack serves as the proceedings’ amusing opener), it’s a rollicking saga of love, loyalty, duplicity, and madman ambition and arrogance that, on the heels of 2023’s superb Asteroid City, proves that the auteur still has his proverbial fastball.
As is Anderson’s trademark, The Phoenician Scheme is an all-star affair with a to-die-for cast which includes Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Mathieu Amalric, Riz Ahmed, Richard Ayoade, and Hope Davis.
Still, after Del Toro, it’s Michael Cera as Bjørn, the tutor for Korda’s nine sons, and Mia Threapleton as Sister Liesl, the protagonist’s nun daughter, who truly elevate the proceedings into the comedic stratosphere. The former probes an ideal match for Anderson’s humorous sensibilities, and the latter serves as the film’s droll, empathetic heart and soul.
Though its action is also energized by its episodic ensemble design (complete with interludes about a heaven populated by Willem Dafoe’s knave and Bill Murray’s God), it truly flourishes thanks to its three leads, each of whom are completely in sync with each other and the material’s inventive, witty spirit.
No one makes films as effervescent, electric, and sneakily heartbreaking as Anderson, and perhaps the greatest trick pulled by The Phoenician Scheme is that, beneath its jaunty and manicured surface, it’s a moving tale of loss, legacy, faith, and the bonds shared between parents and children. All of which is to say, it’s another triumph for America’s most inimitable cinematic artist.
Ahead of its domestic premiere, we chatted with the director about his interest in genre films, his recurring fondness for larger-than-life father figures, and Twin Peaks: The Return.
Your last film, Asteroid City, was “sci-fi,” and The Phoenician Scheme boasts a lot of espionage and adventure elements. Do you feel like you’re currently leaning more into genre filmmaking?
Asteroid City, well, it’s got an alien, and there’s a ship that comes down. But we could probably say, if there were some rules that we set out for what constitutes the science fiction genre, or even tools, we’re not using many of the tools. Mostly, we’re just with these people in a quarantine in a little town. But nevertheless, it is a science fiction movie.
That’s a fair assessment.
This movie, my intention was, we were doing this businessman story, this ruthless tycoon-type story. It was only when we got into the specifics of, okay, now we’re writing the first scene, now we’re not just making notes of what we think the movie is [that it evolved].
In the first scene, we had this guy get blown in two, and then he ejected the pilot, which I did not expect. That’s improvised in a sense, in the writing process. Then the whole thing, what I envisioned as meetings and scenes of negotiation and confrontation, started to become more like adventure, because now we’re going to do that in this desert, and now we’re going to get back on the airplane.
There was always going to be a lot of time in his plane. We were going to be in this plane a lot. But it became more like an adventure story, and the next thing I know, I think he’s going to be sinking in quicksand. I think, for me and Roman Coppola, while we were writing it, that surprised us. It chose us. Even though we were the ones doing the choosing, we were also the ones being surprised.
Despite its spy-movie elements, the film is a story about an estranged dad and daughter attempting to reconnect in the wake of loss, which is reminiscent of your earlier movies. Do you consciously think about how your films connect, narratively and thematically, or is that analysis best left for critics and shrinks?
In the case of this, we felt, as we were working on it, that it’s just becoming about them. That’s what it wants to be. But I think that I unconsciously knew, while we were writing it, that the business deal was the sort of plot, if you can even call it that, and that the convoluted journey is becoming like a ritual for something Zsa-zsa could do with his daughter.
Essentially, he’s made a game for them to play, and the purpose of the game is not to win – it’s for them to play it, and finish it, together. That’s the point of the game. The playing it, and the winning or losing of it as it happens, is going to not actually be his motivation. His motivation is to come to the end of the movie and have the two of them be in a kitchen together.
You’re attracted to wild, rebellious, larger-than-life father figures, and that continues with Benicio Del Toro’s Zsa-zsa. Do you know where that particular interest comes from?
That part, I think it’s less me consciously; it just chooses me, what I want to do. You do say, okay, let’s not do this, because that reminds me too much of this thing we did in, say, Grand Budapest Hotel. At this point, I’ve done so many movies that when we’re writing, we’re saying, that is a lot like this other thing that’s happening all the time. There are so many moments that I’d like to do something like this, except I feel it’s too close to this other thing.
But the most basic thing in the movie is that we’ve made it about an estranged father and daughter, and this is territory I have been [laughs]. That’s where I say, I know, but I feel like that’s what this is about.
The French Dispatch was your first collaboration with Benicio Del Toro. What about that experience made you want to craft a movie around him?
When we made The French Dispatch, there were moments we were seeing in the cutting room where…it was electric on the set, and it’s more electric here in the cutting room. Like, I can’t even choose which bit of this I should use because he’s doing something physical that’s just some surprise. I thought, I would like to have a thing where just that is the main thing.
I had that in mind. But the idea of the character and Benicio playing it were joined from the first moment. There was never a moment of, what can we write for Benicio? And there was never a moment of, who’s going to play this tycoon? Both things at once was the first idea.
There’s a line early in The Phoenician Scheme where, confronted by his daughter’s accusation that “they” say he murdered her mother, Benicio exclaims “I’m going to sue them for LIBEL!” and his inflection of the final word is laugh-out-loud perfect. When you’re writing comedy, how much are you thinking about delivery, and how much do you count on your actors to make funny lines funny?
That one moment I remember very well, because Benicio, he’s got such power, and he doesn’t like to overdo it. He doesn’t want to push, really. And after this thing, he was like, this girl’s [Threapleton’s Sister Liesl] not going to want to be around me. I act like this? And I’m like, no, I think it’s good.
I showed it to a friend, and he said, Benicio is so broadly intimidating. I like that: “broadly intimidating.” You know, he is. He’s broadly intimidating. He has this physicality, and she’s very diminutive, and there’s a real contrast. But she’s also very stolid and not cowed by him in the scenes. In life, she has a normal level of deference and intimidation. But when the cameras are rolling, she somehow appears to have absolutely no doubt whatsoever. She’s toe-to-toe with him.
This is Mia Threapleton’s first big film role. Was there any process of acclimating her to her illustrious castmates? You’ve really thrown her into the deep end here.
Most of it is, you get them together and they take it from there. That even goes for Mia. She’s got the script, she’s learned it, she’s working on her own without much from me. She asks me questions and I say what I think, but basically, they’re all doing their work, and then they mix together and they know that, okay, here’s my part of this, and I think I can help this person that way. They figure out stuff that I don’t even know about [laughs].
This is your first film with Michael Cera, and he’s ideal as Bjørn. How did it take so long for this match made in heaven to come about?
I met him years ago, and I’ve thought about him from time to time, and I love him, so it was just a matter of time before I was going to say, would you consider this? But in particular, did you did you see him in Twin Peaks?
Yes, he’s brilliant.
Wally Brando. It was Wally Brando that made me say, I’ve got to fast-track this. We’ve got to get him in sooner rather than later. He’s too good. He’s on fire.
His character’s switch in The Phoenician Scheme actually reminded me of his work in Twin Peaks.
He’s so good in that. And what I love too is, why do you think of him for Wally Brando? You know, they did that! He gives this speech, and I feel in watching this Wally Brando scene that everybody’s about to laugh a couple of times into it, but they’re laughing out of delight with just how good it is. How it’s funny good, and this magical moment. To me, the trigger for him to be in this one was Wally Brando.
The Phoenician Scheme also trades in questions of faith, legacy, and the afterlife, specifically via Korda’s visions of heaven. As you get older—and are now about to have a ten-film boxset of your works released—are those topics on your mind more?
To me, it’s more about how so many friends died. I’m 56 years old, and in the last 15 years, the number of friends that I’ve lost…they just disappeared. That thing you experience where you keep having to face the fact that, I can’t even have a little conversation with this person who I know would love this thing or would have something wonderful to say or could advise me right now. That thing becomes very palpable.
It’s so much more a part of my life than it was 20 years ago, when somebody every now and then died, but not very often, and not somebody central. Now it’s so many. I think that figures into it.
