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Cosmopolitan
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
'The Phoenician Scheme' Cast and Characters
Wes Anderson's movies are known for featuring ensemble casts with many actors working with the director repeatedly. His new movie, The Phoenician Scheme, is no different. While there are some new faces joining the Anderson gang, there are some regulars coming back for round two (or three or four or 11, in one case). The Phoenician Scheme—which hits theaters in limited release on May 30 before a wide release on June 6—is set in 1950 and follows Zsa-zsa Korda, a wealthy businessman, who decides to make his estranged daughter, Liesl, into his successor amid multiple assassination attempts against him. The two reconnect as they travel across "Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia" to work on Zsa-zsa's projects. On their journey, they tackle mysteries from their pasts and threats from their present, coming into contact with a collection of unique characters along the way. Read on to learn more about the movie and its impressive cast. Benicio del Toro stars as Anatole "Zsa-zsa" Korda, a rich industrialist, who is one of the wealthiest people in Europe. But he is not just sought after for his skills in business, he's also being hunted down for his crimes and misdeeds. Del Toro is has starred in movies, including Traffic, 21 Grams, Sin City, and Sicario, and he plays the Collector in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is his second Wes Anderson film after The French Dispatch. Instagram: N/A Zsa-zsa's daughter is Liesl, a nun with whom he reunites after several years apart. He plans to make her the successor to his business empire. Liesl is played by Mia Threapleton. She appeared in the TV series Dangerous Liaisons, and acted alongside her mother, Kate Winslet, in the movie A Little Chaos and in an episode of the anthology series I Am... This is her first Wes Anderson film. Instagram: N/A Bjorn is Zsa-zsa's tutor, a Norwegian man, who is also an insect expert. He joins Zsa-zsa and Liesl on their journey. Michael Cera plays Bjorn. The actor is known for roles in Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Barbie, and for the TV comedy Arrested Development. This is his first Wes Anderson film. Instagram: N/A Riz Ahmed plays Prince Farouk—from the "Territory of His Majesty the 7th King of Lower Western Independent Phoenicia"—who is working on a train project with Zsa-zsa. Ahmed starred in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sound of Metal, and the TV show The Night Of. This is his first Wes Anderson film. Instagram: @rizahmed Leland is an American businessman, who is involved in the same train project as Prince Farouk. Tom Hanks plays Leland. You may have heard of him thanks to movies like Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, and Cast Away. This is his second Wes Anderson film after Asteroid City. Instagram: @tomhanks Reagan is Leland's brother and business partner. Reagan's played by Bryan Cranston, who is known for the TV series Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad, and for movies including Godzilla, Trumbo, and Argo. This is his third Wes Anderson film after Isle of Dogs and Asteroid City. Instagram: @bryancranston Marseille Bob is a French nightclub owner and gang leader, whose club is another stop on Zsa-zsa's journey. Bob is portrayed by Mathieu Amalric, who has starred in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Munich, and the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. This is his third Wes Anderson film after The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch. Instagram: N/A Sergio is a leader of the Intercontinental Radical Freedom Militia Corps, a group that comes into contact with Zsa-zsa and his crew. Comedian, director, and actor Richard Ayoade plays Sergio. He is best known for the TV series The IT Crowd, and has also had roles in The Souvenir and Paddington 2. This is his second Wes Anderson film after The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More. Instagram: @perhapsthehumblestguy Marty is another American businessman, who is part of a waterway project with Zsa-zsa. Jeffrey Wright plays Marty. The actor is known for starring in Angels in America (on Broadway and in the miniseries adaptation), The Batman, American Fiction, and as Beetee Latier in the Hunger Games franchise. This is his third Wes Anderson film after The French Dispatch and Asteroid City. Instagram: @jfreewright Hilda is Zsa-zsa's second cousin, who is overseeing a hydroelectric project under Zsa-zsa's purview. Cousin Hilda is played by Scarlett Johansson, who you know from Lost in Translation, Marriage Story, and as Black Widow in the MCU. This is her third Wes Anderson film after Isle of Dogs and Asteroid City. Instagram: N/A Also part of the personal life side of Zsa-zsa's story is Uncle Nubar, his brother. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Nubar. The actor is known as Doctor Strange in the MCU, and for starring in The Imitation Game and The Power of the Dog. This is his second Wes Anderson film after The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More. Instagram: N/A Excalibur is the code name for a secret agent character, played by Rupert Friend, who is investigating Zsa-zsa. Friend is known for roles in Pride & Prejudice, The Young Victoria, and the TV series Homeland. This is his fourth Wes Anderson film after The French Dispatch, Asteroid City, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More. Instagram: @rupertfriend The Mother Superior at the convent where Liesl is a nun is played by Hope Davis. Davis has appeared in the movies American Splendor, Synecdoche, New York, and Captain America: Civil War. This is her second Wes Anderson film after Asteroid City. Instagram: N/A In addition to the 13 actors above who get top billing, the movie also includes some small roles from a few Anderson regulars. Bill Murray appears as God in his 11th Anderson film. (Or tenth, sort of? He's only kind of in Asteroid City.) The only movies from the director Murray is not in are Anderson's first movie, Bottle Rocket, and his anthology movie The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More. Instagram: N/A Willem Dafoe plays Knave, marking his sixth time in an Anderson film. He also appeared in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, and Asteroid City. Instagram: N/A Lastly, F. Murray Abraham plays Prophet. It's his third Anderson film after The Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle of Dogs. Instagram: N/A
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
A delightful capitalist in this economy? Only in Wes Anderson's 'The Phoenician Scheme'
Wes Anderson's 'The Phoenician Scheme' opens with a bang: a grisly explosion, a plane crash and a dramatic close-up of tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), his battered face so lumpen and purple it resembles eggplant Parmesan. Zsa-zsa is a survivor and a fighter and an indefatigable entrepreneur; his relentless energy is matched by nothing else other then Alexandre Desplat's thrilling ticking time bomb of a score. He's also a one-man plague whose ruinations include famine, slavery and a string of mysteriously dead ex-wives. 'I never personally murdered anybody,' Zsa-zsa insists with unconvincing conviction. And yet, Anderson sells us on rooting for this robber-baron. We are the film's mark. It's a pleasure to be so deftly swindled. The scheme of the film's title is Zsa-zsa's grand plan to build a dam, tunnel and canal in coordinates that roughly correspond to Saudi Arabia, but are here known as Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia, presumably in honor of the ancient empire who prioritized trade over warfare and religion. (In their philosophy, the Phoenicians were closer to than Rome.) Zsa-zsa has already convinced the necessary parties to agree: a prince (Riz Ahmed), two American industrialists (Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston), a nightclub impresario (Mathieu Amalric), a sailor (Jeffrey Wright) and his cousin-slash-fiancée (Scarlett Johansson). Due to price-fixing sabotage by his enemies, though, Zsa-zsa must now convince everyone to earn a little less on the deal using every tactic from barked threats to sports bets to a gift basket of grenades. The other characters are impressed by his commitment but they're rarely fazed. Wright's Marty sums up Zsa-zsa's appeal in a single line: 'I supposed I'm moved by this absurd performance.' Which we are. Del Toro's charisma fills this larger-than-life role all the way to the brim. He speaks in threats, bluffs and declarations, and when he gets hopped up, his hair stands on its end. The script is all momentum and moxie and every line out of Zsa-zsa's mouth is a zinger, a koan of mischief in its hypocrisy ('I'm willing to believe in the opposite of my convictions') or delusional self-sufficiency ('I'll save myself myself,' he asserts, as quicksand rises over his hips). These escapades are set in 1950 and have a handsome vintage color palette of white, gray, green, metal and wood. The style is fitting since the modern world doesn't make many men like this anymore, only ones who posture like big shots. As Zsa-zsa, bloodied from his latest near-death escapade, lumbers toward a news camera clutching his innards ('a vestigial organ,' he says with a shrug), the only contemporary equivalent who measures up is the filmmaker Werner Herzog who, upon being shot in the gut mid-interview, dismissed it as 'an insignificant bullet.' What Zsa-zsa's passion project will actually do is a bit vague, even after he unveils a spectacular working miniature with running water and toy trains that exists mostly for the delightful inevitability that someone is bound to stomp around on it like Godzilla. That's not a weakness in the script. The idea seems to be that whatever it is, accomplishing it is the accomplishment — that the goal itself is the goal. There's money involved, too, of course, and it sounds impressive: 5% of the profits for the next 150 years. But it's not like Zsa-zsa will live long enough to reap the reward. Over the course of the movie, he's nearly murdered a half-dozen times by bullets, bombs, poison gas and a good old-fashioned clobbering. 'If it works, it's a miracle,' Zsa-zsa sighs. Luckily, he's traveling with an aspiring nun, his estranged daughter, Liesl (a strong Mia Threapleton), who insists she wants nothing to do with him or his money, professing the same allegiance to piety as he does to racketeering. The soul of the movie is in watching these ramrod opposites bend and intertwine. They're also joined by a tutor, Bjørn (Michael Cera), a self-described bohemian who speaks in a sing-songy Swedish accent that draws every bubbling syllable out of the sentence: 'Beer is de-li-ci-ous.' With his owlish orange glasses and mincing theatrical manners, Cera seems custom-designed for Anderson's style. He's as spot-on as the production design's gridded tile floors or a crisp camera move that pans precisely to a visual gag. Lately, Anderson has been on a tear of using his perfectionist aesthetic to defend the act of ambition itself — to honor artisans who create masterpieces in a world of philistines. The only thing he loves more than a carved credenza (and here, they're decorated with hieroglyphics) is the craftsperson who made it and the aesthete who bought it, instead of settling for something disposable. I was never a fan of Anderson's until 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' clicked him into focus. It was hard to believe he knew what he was talking about when his earlier movies tried to sell us on love between human beings. But a hotelier's love of his linens? That I'll buy. With 'The Phoenician Scheme,' Anderson is celebrating the art of the spiel, the capitalism that artists are supposed to be against. Zsa-zsa is no vulgarian. He's a voracious intellectual who understands the value of a masterpiece on a practical level, buying great works by the dozens. But he doesn't bother to mount most of his oil paintings, leaving them stacked against the walls of his 16th century palazzo like dollar records at a flea market. And yet, a financial contract itself can be a thing of beauty. Lord knows, in order to make a movie, you have to broker plenty of them. Watching Zsa-zsa do his verbal pirouettes, I thought fondly of a former boyfriend, an indie film producer, who helped me buy a new car and talked the price down $3,000. 'A gentleman negotiator,' the salesman beamed. It was as though I'd introduced Ginger Rogers to Fred Astaire. The film is dedicated to Anderson's late father-in-law, Fouad Malouf, a businessman and engineer who stashed his own plans in the very shoeboxes that now store Zsa-zsa's blueprints. But the character is more of a riff on the real-life oil baron Calouste Gulbenkian, the world's richest man at the time of his death in 1955 and a template for today's globe-roaming magnates who pledge allegiance only to their own ambitions. Zsa-zsa shuns passports; Gulbenkian declined British knighthood. Zsa-zsa has also inherited Gulbenkian's moniker, Mr. Five Per Cent, and nemesis: a half-brother, Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), who has the same name, beard and horned eyebrows of Gulbenkian's son, a playboy who was so incensed when his father refused to let him charge a $4.50 chicken lunch that he filed a $10-million lawsuit. 'There is no love in this house,' Liesl declares. 'God is absent.' There's a lot of religious cross-talk that doesn't entirely stitch together. Zsa-zsa repeatedly exclaims that Nubar 'isn't human, he's biblical.' It's anybody's guess what that means. Some sort of Old Testament vengeance? Meanwhile, the imagery encompasses everything from Anubis, the Egyptian deity of the dead, to Liesl's blasphemously bejeweled rosary that comes to symbolize the temptation to turn into her dad. It's worth noting that we're more disappointed when her Mother Superior (Hope Davis) reveals herself to be greedy than by her father's flagrant scamming. At least Zsa-zsa is proud of his sins. Or is he? Every time he gets close to death, he's forced to stare eternal judgment in the face via black-and-white fantasy sequences in which Bill Murray plays God, with Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham and Charlotte Gainsbourg as his heavenly troupe. These scenes are stunning, poetic and unabashedly Bergmaneqsue. Between them and our own awareness that ancient faiths have built pyramids and temples that will outlast anything our century's billionaires will manage to construct, you do feel a sense of divine awe. It's not that you have to believe that there is a force out there more powerful than Zsa-zsa, or heck, even money itself. But if that doesn't move you, at least Anderson deserves reverence for negotiating how to get all these A-list talents to act in his movie for peanuts. He's managed to build yet another dazzler, a shrine to his own ambition and craft. And while it sometimes feels a bit drafty in the corners, the accomplishment itself is plenty.
