The question is what happened between The French Dispatch (2021, Wes Anderson), Asteroid City (2023, Anderson) and now? Some have described these films as too Wes Anderson. I didn’t find either immediately accessible the first time I saw them in the theater, but chalked that up to me needing more viewings, more time, to recognize and appreciate them.
But now I don’t think it’s that at all. I think they lack anything to make me emotionally invest in their characters or stories. This even led me to question as to whether all works of those whom I would call master filmmakers did in fact possess some capacity to deliver a meaningful emotional connection and without such, are the works themselves empty? Shallow? Ultimately meaningless?
The Phoenician Scheme (2025, Wes Anderson) proves that the Golden Age Hollywood era perfected comedy. In terms of depictions of sex, violence, or postmodernism, Anderson confines his aesthetic by not employing any advances to come from the past 60 years or so. He isn’t doing anything new. He’s just doing it better than anyone else.
On my second theatrical viewing of The Phoenician Scheme, in the final scene I realized where the feeling is. It’s not that (like in The French Dispatch and Asteroid City) it doesn’t generate a means to deliver significant feeling; rather, it’s that its two central characters repress their feelings, and so in turn must the narrative. It’s as though Anderson decided for a change (in his last 3 films) not to rely on easy, overly sentimental devices. And this time it worked. The Phoenician Scheme basically uses a twist on the Paper Moon dynamic. And the common link here is in both cases neither father nor daughter give an inch of emotional real estate, thus in the end allowing us to feel what our hearts know to be true, and in a most rewarding way in that we don’t see it on screen but recognize it for ourselves, like a profound secret. And isn’t that the highest cinema can strive for?
But stylistically, if Moonrise Kingdom (2012, Anderson) was the first Wes Anderson movie to matter, with its adherence to x and y axis camera moves, then The French Dispatch and Asteroid City added the z axis to the rigorous exacting staging of composition. And The Phoenician Scheme keeps in line with this tradition, adding a greater emphasis on 90° pans, and utilizing open framed gags.
And a lot of violence. This is one of my favorite openings to a movie ever. The adrenaline inducing score punctuated with the bisected administrative secretary. And into the cockpit argument awoke me from my cinematic hibernation of recent years and got me to sit back up where we belong: on the edge of my seat. And as a sidenote, the funniest moment for me is the crash at the end, realizing that’s the same pilot.
In closing, I think the casting of the great Benicio Del Toro channeling a millionaire heel from some on the tip of my brain Hollywood movie from the 1940s (Brian Donlevy?) opposite the unknown playing LEISL is timeless dynamite. And the motor of the plot with the bashable rivets soaring, along with bolts, spikes, and pulverized gravel, exploding the gap for the success of the sabotage plan is mere cosmetics to keep us entertained. The real scheme is getting to enjoy ZSA ZSA KORDA time and time again dying, and coming back from death and Liesl figuring out (though little does she know it) her path in life is to be just like him.
6/8/2025 AMC Phipps 14
6/19/2025 AMC Phipps 14
Atlanta, GA