[COLUMN] The Phoenician Scheme is a Familial Biblical Epic | by Darren Mooney

Note: This piece contains spoilers for The Phoenician Scheme, the latest Wes Anderson movie which is available on video-on-demand as of this

Note: This piece contains spoilers for The Phoenician Scheme, the latest Wes Anderson movie which is available on video-on-demand as of this week. It’s a bit of a step down (or perhaps back) from Anderson’s more recent work, but it’s still a beautifully made and sweet movie about that most Andersonian of themes: how dads will mess you up. If you haven’t seen it yet, but plan to, consider this a spoiler warning.

At one point, late in The Phoenician Scheme, industrialist Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro) comes face to face with his half-brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch). “You’re not human,” Anatole remarks of his sibling, echoing something he told his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) earlier in the film. “You’re biblical.” In some ways, this exchange feels like a statement of intent for Wes Anderson’s latest effort.

The plot of The Phoenician Scheme concerns Korda’s efforts to realize his latest grand endeavor, a massive infrastructure scheme in the remote country of Phoenicia. The plot is largely episodic, with Korda dragging Liesl from one set of disgruntled investors to another as he tries desperately to close “the gap” in the plan’s finances. Literally spiraling across the nation, Korda has to beg, borrow and steal to secure financial support, while also trying to avoid assassination and sabotage by his rivals.

However, the film itself plays like an Andersonian take on the classic biblical epic. Wes Anderson is not a typical filmmaker, and has his own very distinct style. Anderson once reportedly opined that he had “spent his entire career remaking Heat and nobody's ever noticed” because of his distinct aesthetic. Anderson’s films don’t look like anybody else’s. As such, it makes sense that Anderson’s take on a biblical epic wouldn’t resemble the conventional cinematic form.

The Phoenician Scheme is obsessed with religion. Liesl is a novice nun, whose prayers are often answered. Korda has the Pope on speed dial. Korda has had several near-death experiences, having survived multiple assassination attempts, and over the course of the films is haunted by visions of what appears to be heaven, where he is confronted with figures like his deceased grandmother (Carmen-Maja Antoni), Liesl’s late lamented mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and God (Bill Murray).

The Phoenician Scheme unfolds against the backdrop of the Middle East in 1950. At one point, Korda crosses paths with his second cousin Hilda Sussman-Korda (Scarlett Johansson), who is attempting to establish a “private utopian outpost” in the desert, in perhaps the film’s thorniest acknowledgment of colonialism in the region. Indeed, Hilda is even dressed in a manner that evokes the shirt and khakis of the original Jewish settlers in the region.

The conflicts within The Phoenician Scheme are framed in biblical terms. The film reveals that Nubar directed the assassination attempts against Korda, and the film culminates in a fight to the death between the brothers, evoking Cain and Abel. Nubar is ultimately washed away in a biblical flood. Motivated by Liesl’s morality and by a conversation with God, Korda vows to end slavery and famine within the Kingdom of Phoenicia. “Are you against slavery?” Korda asks the Creator. “In the Bible?” God seems almost insulted by the question, bluntly replying, “It’s damnable.” He clarifies, “To hell.”

One of the central tensions of The Phoenician Scheme is the extent to which it feels both old and new. On the one hand, Anderson has never made a movie quite as overtly religious as this. On the other hand, Anderson is returning – and perhaps even retreating – to some of his core themes. For all that The Phoenician Scheme has a complicated and convoluted plot, the story is relatively straightforward. This is a classic Andersonian narrative about a broken parental relationship.

Most of Anderson’s early films are preoccupied with damaged relationships between parents and children, occupied with deeply flawed parental figures like Herman Blume (Bill Murray) in Rushmore, "Royal" Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) in The Royal Tenenbaums, Patricia (Anjelica Huston) in The Darjeeling Limited, and even the eponymous character (George Clooney) in The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Orphans look for parental substitutes in Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

This is classic Campbellian stuff, the archetypal tension at the heart of Star Wars and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. However, it did also feel like Anderson had thoroughly explored that thematic territory. His more recent work demonstrated a concern with bigger philosophical ideas. The Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle of Dogs were fables about encroaching fascism. The French Dispatch, his Roald Dahl shorts and “Asteroid City” were about what it means to make “art.”

Of course, Anderson’s preoccupation with failed and absent parents never entirely went away. A large part of the plot of the play-within-the-television-show-within-the-film of “Asteroid City” concerns Augie Steenbeck, as played by Jones Hall (Jason Schwartzman), struggling with how to help his children (Jake Ryan, Ella Faris, Gracie Faris, Willan Faris) process the death of their mother. But that theme played within a larger symphony, one idea among many.

However, the dynamic between Korda and Liesl in The Phoenician Scheme is the beating heart of the movie. Everything around it is just decoration. The movie hinges on the redemption of a failed parent and reconciliation between that parent and their child. Thematically, The Phoenician Scheme feels like a less adventurous work for Anderson than The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, the Roald Dahl shorts or “Asteroid City.” It feels like Anderson is treading familiar ground.

To be fair, it makes sense for Anderson to return to this parental preoccupation. “That theme might have something to do with me having a daughter,” Anderson stated in press for the film, referring to the birth of his first child in 2016. The film is also dedicated to Anderson’s father-in-law, Lebanese businessman Fouad Malouf, who passed away a couple of years prior. This perhaps also informed the characterization of Augie and his father-in-law Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks) in “Asteroid City.”

To give Anderson some credit, there are moments where it feels like the director is pushing against his limits. The film is still defined by Anderson’s precious and stately compositions, but the camera is more adventurous. Liesl slaps the camera twice, causing it to whip pan. At the climax, Nubar throttles the camera. At one point, the camera even goes handheld to chase Korda and Nubar, a very disconcerting moment within the otherwise rigid world of a Wes Anderson movie.

This tension between old and new is perhaps most apparent in the casting of Michael Cera. Somehow, The Phoenician Scheme is the first time that Cera has worked with Anderson, but it also somehow feels like the pair were tailor-made for each other’s sensibility, to the point that Cumberbatch described the collaboration as akin to “God discovering water.” It is such a perfect match that it is hard to believe that this is the first union of the pair.

Indeed, one of the more charming facets of The Phoenician Scheme is the way that Anderson weaves his familiar familial themes within the tapestry of the somewhat more adventurous trappings of the religious epic. There is a recurring sense that God is perhaps the ultimate absent or failed father figure. There is a very strong suggestion that Liesl is effectively caught between two competing paternal models and will have to choose between Korda and God.

Despite the outsized role that he plays in Liesl’s life, God is absent. He appears in Korda’s near-death visions, but Liesl admits that she doesn’t actually feel connected to her maker. “When I pray, no one answers,” she admits late in the film. “I only pretend He does. Then I do whatever I think God probably would’ve suggested. Usually, it’s obvious.” It is interesting that while God might be an abstraction to Liesl, he is still arguably a more positive influence on her life than her actual father.

God fills a void that Korda left in her life. “How’d you get so religious?” Korda asks his daughter. “My surviving parent sent me to live in a convent at age five,” she explains, implying that he left a hole in her life that she filled with belief in a higher authority. Korda seems to see God as a threat to his role in the household, objecting when Liesl tries to convert her male siblings. “Why would anybody do something I didn’t tell them to do?” Korda demands, used to his own word being gospel.

When Korda seeks to rekindle his relationship with Liesl, he has his own commandment. Liesl must forsake the cloth and the trappings of her belief system. “We’ve annulled your sacred covenant, Miss Liesl,” Korda’s man servant (Alex Jennings) explains. “A secular rosary will arrive from the jeweler later this afternoon. I hope you’ll find it to your liking.” Korda seems to be trying to step into the gap that he created in his daughter’s life, one that she filled with God.

Anderson also employs the rhythms of the epic in developing his family drama. By its nature, the plot is largely episodic. It is built on repetition. Korda moves from one set of investors to another, trying to manipulate each to take a bigger stake in the enterprise, only to fail and almost lose everything. Korda employs this technique with the Sacramento Boys (Tom Hanks and Bryan Crantson), Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric) and Marty (Jeffrey Wright), even though it fails every time.

The Phoenician Scheme is built around repetition. Korda starts each negotiation by offering his potential partner a hand grenade, only for them to reply that he is “very kind.” Korda survives two separate plane crashes in the same model of airplane over the course of the film, in both cases ejecting the pilot to fly the craft himself. There is a strong a pervasive sense in which Korda refuses to change, even though his behavior is self-evidently self-destructive.

Such behaviors are parts of larger cycles. Hilda tells Liesl about Korda’s father, who tried to murder his own brother. It is an obvious echo of the fratricidal tension between Korda and Nubar, with Nubar even employing the same “very effective poison gas” that his father has used while attempting to kill his own brother. This generational violence lends The Phoenician Scheme a larger scope than most Anderson movies, but it ties back into the film’s understanding of damaged family dynamics.

That said, there is a compelling humanism at the heart of The Phoenician Scheme, as Anderson ties together these religious and familial themes into the belief that anybody can be redeemed. Korda is a businessman, a cheat, a manipulator, a liar and a bad father. However, The Phoenician Scheme puts Korda on trial. He initially claims to be considering Liesl as his “sole heir – on a trial basis”, but it quickly becomes clear that she has put him “on a trial period.” During one near-death experience, confronted by a heavenly jury, Korda demands, “I’m not on trial here, am I?”

The Phoenician Scheme suggests that even Korda is not beyond redemption. He donates his material wealth to fill “the gap”, allowing the infrastructure plan to press ahead. He gives up any profit participation in the deal, which ultimately enriches the people of Phoenicia. In doing so, he repairs his relationship with Liesl. He does not change completely – Liesl muses that his "entrepreneurial energies remain robustly invigorated by the austerity of our poverty" – but he does become better.

In The Phoenician Scheme, Anderson takes his familiar thematic preoccupations and ties them to the structures and conventions of a very different sort of movie, crafting a religious and biblical odyssey that is ultimately about the redemption of one flawed and absent father. It’s an interesting fusion of two very different scales of story, held together by Anderson’s very distinct style.