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Wall Street Journal
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Phoenician Scheme' Review: Wes Anderson's Latest Loopy Father Figure
Aside from Sofia Coppola and her princesses in gilded cages, Wes Anderson might be the filmmaker who is most obsessively focused on a single theme. A charming but outlandishly inept father is once again in the spotlight for his latest comedy, 'The Phoenician Scheme.' As in several other films directed by Mr. Anderson, an ebulliently wacky dad, this time played by Benicio del Toro, tries to reconnect with a suspicious and wounded offspring, in this case Liesl, a novitiate played by Mia Threapleton. It's 1950, and she hasn't seen the old man in six years when he, Zsa-zsa Korda, an internationally loathed rogue trying to pull off a massive series of construction projects, reunites with her to tell her she's his sole heir. Her nine brothers? They don't count, he tells her. One of them fires flaming arrows at the pair (from a crossbow) as they discuss matters.
News.com.au
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Benicio del Toro heads stellar cast as Wes Anderson gets back to his best in The Phoenician Scheme
With a quirky comedy from a revered Hollywood veteran and truly terrifying horror from homegrown up-and-comers, it's a week of quality extremes on the big screen. THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (M) Director: Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel) ★★★★ Life is but a scheme For 30 years, American writer-director Wes Anderson has been constantly refining the most distinctive visual aesthetic in movie history. No-one uses colour, light, texture and the precision placement of cameras and props in remotely the same way. Considering Anderson has been at it for so long – the magnificent The Grand Budapest Hotel remains an absolute career high point – most moviegoers will have already decided where they stand on his work. Therefore those who have never connected with all things Wes Anderson can safely put a line through his new movie, The Phoenician Scheme, immediately. However, for those who can't get enough of this singular stylist, the release of The Phoenician Scheme definitely calls for both immediate celebration and attendance. This is definitely one of the best things Anderson has ever put his name to. Benicio del Toro leads the way with a wired and inspired comic performance as the wily billionaire industrialist Zsa-Zsa Korda. The year is 1950 and, as the story gets going, Korda is not only one of the richest men in the world, but also one of the most despised. This would explain all the failed assassination attempts and ill-fated aeroplane journeys that appear in his diary on an all-too-regular basis. In fact, Korda is so loaded and so loathed, no country will have him on their books as a citizen. Nevertheless, the lack of a passport or the likelihood of imminent death is not about to stop Korda from sealing the deal of a lifetime: a project which will bring water to some of the driest locations in the Middle East. All Korda has to do to score his biggest-ever payday is keep a select group of private investors in line until the deal is approved. This proves to be much more difficult than it sounds until Korda's estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) takes some time off from her day job as a nun to help her embattled father realise his lucrative dream. As is often the case with Anderson's movies, the intensely deadpan sense of humour underpinning his work needs an exemplary cast to tell his oddball jokes in the right way. Therefore the presence of names such as Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston and newcomer Threapleton (daughter of Kate Winslet) is a gift that keeps on giving throughout. BRING HER BACK (MA15+) ★★★★ General release It was a only a few years back that Adelaide filmmaking brothers Danny and Michael Philippou snapped Hollywood to attention with their low-budget debut Talk to Her. That cleverly creepy horror flick cost around $5 million to produce, and made roughly 30 times that amount worldwide. Was this all a fluke, or are the Philippous the real deal? On the strength of their second feature, they could be the most accomplished and commanding filmmakers in the country right now. All the proof needed is stamped on every frame of Bring Her Back, a consummately intimidating and genuinely frightening horror movie that is clearly one of the year's best. Sally Hawkins has the lead role of Laura, a foster parent of supposed good standing with bad things in mind for the next youths unluckily enough to land on her doorstep. The recently orphaned siblings, Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong), are still in a state of shock when they first arrive, but soon notice all is not right inside Laura's dingy, dimly-lit bushland home. Particularly when they start crossing paths with a third child in Laura's lamentable care. Anchored by Hawkins' grotesquely deranged performance (you'll never think of her as the kindly mum from the Paddington series ever again!), Bring Her Back reveals the Philippou brothers to be truly imposing masters of their craft. Whenever they let loose with the scary stuff here, the shocks are instantaneous and powerfully unsettling. Be very afraid … and be very impressed. FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH (M) ★★ Now streaming on Apple TV+ A big bland shambles of an action-adventure movie, stacking many familiar templates from the genre (in particular, the Indiana Jones and National Treasure flicks) into a neat, non-offensive, not-so-entertaining pile. John Krasinski is Luke Purdue, leader of a bunch of a misfits who make a buck nicking rare antiquities on behalf of conniving collectors. Luke's latest assignment is a doozy: a cancer-stricken tycoon (Domhnall Gleeson) reckons a sip from the fabled Fountain of Youth might just reverse his terminal diagnosis. Could Luke find it? Probably. But only after determining whether this magic spring actually exists. This he will ultimately do with assistance from his snarky museum-curating sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman). However, first there must be a rather dull wild goose chase all over the globe before the job at hand can really get started. Though this movie never truly falls apart at any time, it does wobble and shake unconvincingly should you think too hard.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Phoenician Scheme stars share what Wes Anderson is really like to work with
The Phoenician Scheme is Wes Anderson's latest whimsical tale, introducing a host of new actors to his famous troupe including Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera who tell Yahoo UK how much of a joy it is to work with the prolific director. Anderson is known for his meticulously designed shots and for having very specific performances from his actors, but for Threapleton, Cera and Benicio del Toro it was a freeing experience. His latest film follows billionaire Zsa Zsa Korda (del Toro), who reconnects with his daughter Liesl (Threapleton) after surviving his sixth assassination attempt, the would-be nun isn't interested in joining the family business but agrees to travel with her father across Phoenicia temporarily to help him with his latest business venture. Threapleton admits that she was grateful to the director for not making her feel "othered" on set, despite being the newest member of the troupe and this being her first big movie. Saying it is "beautiful" to work with Anderson, the actor said: "He leads with a lot of love, and I think it really makes an impact on everybody that's working with him because we will trust in his vision. "It's so clear and he's so calm and precise, and wonderful, and he never made me feel like I was walking in for the first time — because I was, Michael and I had never worked with him before. But, for me, this was the first big thing I've ever done and he never made me feel othered in any any way. So he was wonderful." Cera, who plays Norwegian teacher Bjorn in the film, hails Anderson for being "so inclusive" with his cast, particularly newcomers like himself and Threapleton: "You just feel folded right into the group right away. He's amazing at that, and it's kind of legendary that he hosts these group banquet dinners every night with chefs that he's personally selected from Berlin, these wonderful women." He adds: "I mean it's like having the most amazing party thrown for you every night. But you are working very hard, it's very rigorous work and you're all very dedicated to what you're doing but he's a wonderful host." Del Toro says the director is "very disciplined" with his creative projects, admitting "you have to be to do this kind of work." "There's a sense of anarchy in a way, in the exploration of the character and how the characters behave. There's a control and a chaos at the same time happening that makes it what it is for me." Regardless of that perceived sense of anarchy, del Toro and Threapleton found it interesting to try and create a familial bond with one another on screen. And del Toro admits he knew it would be easy to do that the moment he met Threapleton. "We read together and I do remember one moment in which we sat there and [Mia] and I, we have this moment where we looked at each other and she didn't blink, she held it, and she walked out. I remember I turned to Wes and I said, 'I think that's what Zsa Zsa needs', that's going to be his compass. And then she is very strong young actor that is fun to work with." "I only found that out about three days ago so it's still funny to hear about it," Threapleton says. "It was amazing to get to unpack and unfold and unwrap all of these many familial layers with [him]. It was great, it was a lot of fun." The trio are supported by a great ensemble cast full of A-listers like Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston and Scarlett Johansson, as well as fellow newcomers like Riz Ahmed whom Threapleton names her favourite co-star on the shoot. But for del Toro the actor who stands out is Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Zsa Zsa's half brother, Uncle Nubar, the main villain of the piece. "He's exactly what we needed at that moment an antagonist," del Toro says. "And he came in with that look, a kind of detached evilness. I think in a way Liesel is the good angel and then Benedict's character is the bad Angel to Zsa Zsa. Our scene was one of the last things we filmed, so we were looking forward to having that confrontation." Said confrontation will likely come as a surprise to fans, because of the way Anderson allows himself to break away from his structured cinematography he's so well known for. For del Toro it was incredibly fun to film: "We knew that he had the beats, you know we're going to be here, we're going to run that way and you're going to fall, you're going to lie down, and everything was pretty much planned out in a way with the stunt people. We just worked on it so no one would get hurt, but it was kind of like you just had to go for it. It was exhausting." Anderson may be meticulous but Threapleton says the cast have a lot of freedom on set when it comes to how they interpret a character: "There is such a clear plan. There is quite a lot of scope to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. It's a lot of fun, and he'll spot small humanisms. "He wants natural, he wants human, he wants real, and he'll see little moments of us existing as us and he'll want to bring that in in some capacity, Many, many times he did do that while we were working." Threapleton adds: "Wes is so good and amazing at guiding in exactly the way that he wants, along with what it is that you are contributing as a performer." The Phoenician Scheme is out now in cinemas.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Phoenician Scheme Is Wes Anderson at His Most Muted
Wes Anderson, who specializes in designing fancifully invented societies, probably doesn't strike anyone as an angry person. But his espionage comedy The Phoenician Scheme, playing in competition here at the Cannes Film Festival, shows glimmers of something that might be called anger, or at least frustration, over the greed and immorality of people who have too much—and yet only want more. The picture is flat and schematic—even flatter and more schematic than usual for Anderson, who favors static camera work and sets that resemble meticulously decorated dollhouses; he also has a penchant for dividing his movies into discrete chapters with the use of descriptively deadpan title cards. All those features figure in The Phoenician Scheme. But the movie is more muted than usual for Anderson, both in terms of its color tones and its story. There's something somber about it; it hints at a fringe of exhaustion on Anderson's part, though it doesn't seem that he's tired of movies—more that he's a little tired of the world. Benicio Del Toro plays Anatole 'Zsa Zsa' Korda, the richest man in Europe, a ruthless 1950s business tycoon who has a knack for surviving plane crashes. The suggestion is that his immorality is the key to his immortality; he's just too distastefully wily to die. After surviving one such smash landing in his private plane, he returns to his palazzo to consider his legacy, having decided that his eldest child and only daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), will be his only heir. (He also has a passel of young sons who figure in the story as virtual orphans; shunted off to the far sidelines, they're generally depicted as an assembly of tiny, nervous faces.) Read more: The 37 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2025 But Liesl has other plans. For one thing, she's a nun in training, ready to renounce all earthly belongings. And she has little affection for her father, trusting him not a whit; she even believes he might have killed her mother. Still, Zsa Zsa talks her into accompanying him on a multi-country jaunt, during which he'll wheedle, cajole, and hoodwink his associates into supplying the money he needs for a big, wealth-generating infrastructure scheme, the details of which are so boring they'll make your eyes glaze over. A meek and geeky insect specialist named Bjorn (Michael Cera) will accompany them, serving as both a tutor and a sort of guy Friday. Predictably, he nurtures a crush on Liesl, whose moonfaced radiance paradoxically gives her a kind of hot-cha-cha beauty, set off especially well by her demure white veil and habit. With her movie-star crimson lips and nail polish, she's quite the dish, though she insists to her father and her prospective suitors (there's more than one) that she truly wants to dedicate her life to God. That fixation on a desire to believe in a higher power, especially within a religious framework, is one quirk we haven't really seen from Anderson before. Still, he offsets it jauntily. The movie's massive revolving door of actors in bit parts, customary for any Anderson affair these days, includes Tom Hanks, Riz Ahmed, Bryan Cranston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Mathieu Amalric. Hope Davis plays a shrewd, strict Reverend Mother who shows up to inform Liesl that owing to her love of luxury goods (her father has given her a rosary made of glittering crystal and a gemstone-studded pipe, both of which she can't resist toting around), she's ill-suited for the convent. But before this exceedingly superior mother superior takes her leave, she makes sure Zsa Zsa is still going to fork over the dough he's promised her for a new refectory. He's not the only one adept at the art of the deal. You might need to be a Wes Anderson purist to love The Phoenician Scheme. There's nothing wrong with the performances: Cera, with his tootling phony Swedish accent, has an amusing savoir faire. Threapleton, with her take-no-prisoners stare, is charmingly enigmatic. But although there are a few good costumes—Zsa Zsa at one point sports a dashing pair of Russian Constructivist-influenced red, white, and black zigzag pattern pajamas—the film's design overall feels curiously restrained. There's lots of 1950s industrial gray-green; even a Marseilles art deco nightclub feels a little decoratively restrained, and the plot jumps around so much that we don't get to spend much time there anyway. Zsa Zsa suffers from troubling dreams—apparently, he does have a conscience—which are rendered in understated black-and-white and have the sobering vibe of old Rockwell Kent illustrations—they may be the movie's best feature. The Phoenician Scheme has none of the lavish, kooky excess of, say, The Grand Budapest Hotel. And the plot, with its fixation on intricate, not-quite-cricket business deals, is—let's just come out and say it—boring. But Anderson seems to be expressing an indistinct dissatisfaction with the current world order in the best way he can: in a parade of color that's somehow less colorful than usual. Contact us at letters@
