Premiering in the main competition of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Phoenician Scheme [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] marks another return to form – or, more accurately, to formula – for Wes Anderson. Despite an all-star cast led by Benicio Del Toro, the film fails to ignite emotionally or intellectually, instead offering another meticulously composed, pastel-hued shell with little inside.

Del Toro plays Zsa-Zsa Korda, a fabulously wealthy businessman plagued by relentless assassination attempts. His solution? Appointing his only daughter, Liesl – a nun, played with near-total blankness by Mia Threapleton – as the sole heiress to his estate. When Korda launches a mysterious infrastructure project, the titular “Phoenician Scheme”, involving a dam and a questionable labour policy, he becomes the target of foreign terrorists, greedy tycoons and a parade of eccentrics.

Anderson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with long-time collaborator Roman Coppola, builds his fictional world by stitching together elements from the Maghreb, mid-century Europe and the post-war USA. While the costumes by Milena Canonero, the production design by Adam Stockhausen and Bruno Delbonnel’s cinematography are undeniably striking – all perfectly symmetrical frames, dreamlike colour palettes and dazzling black-and-white interludes – this aesthetic has grown tired.

What’s more problematic is the emptiness at the film’s core. The script lacks narrative urgency and emotional resonance. Anderson’s trademark deadpan delivery and elliptical dialogue, once charming, now feel like lazy affectation. Characters enter and exit rapidly: Riz Ahmed plays a prince who seems to develop feelings for Liesl; Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston appear out of the blue as shady US businessmen; Benedict Cumberbatch, playing a villain seemingly for the sake of it, pops up as an enigmatic relative; Scarlett Johansson languishes as Zsa-Zsa’s possible wife; and Michael Cera, with a cringey Nordic accent, portrays Bjorn Lund, a Norwegian entomology professor who supposedly serves as comic relief, but the comedy simply isn’t there.

Even the premise – a father-daughter relationship tested by greed and legacy – fizzles out. Liesl remains a cipher throughout, her religious devotion and filial duty never felt or seen. Her interactions with other characters, including the brief romantic overture from Ahmed’s prince and with Cera’s Lund, ring hollow. Meanwhile, Zsa-Zsa himself is erratic: a figure who, despite constant threats and business pressures, somehow evokes neither sympathy nor curiosity.

The film toys with espionage, noir and political satire, but these genres are mashed together without any coherence. Richard Ayoade’s portrayal of a communist rebel leader – all posh accent and random gunfire – typifies the film’s tonal confusion. These flourishes may intend to amuse or provoke, but they ultimately reduce The Phoenician Scheme to an incoherent pastiche.

Alexandre Desplat’s score, usually a highlight of Anderson’s films, here borders on grating – it’s sometimes an over-insistent presence that underlines scenes with a misplaced sense of urgency or whimsy. Barney Pilling and Andrew Weisblum’s editing is as sharp as ever, and the sound work by Chris Scarabosio, Wayne Lemmer and Valentino Gianni is meticulous, but it all serves a hollow machine. The black-and-white “biblical” sequences unfolding when Zsa-Zsa passes out add little to the narrative, and seem another pretext to provide some more screen time for regulars such as Willem Defoe and Bill Murray.

Anderson’s films once felt like handcrafted curios; now, they feel mass-produced, ticking the boxes of visual and narrative quirkiness without delivering any substance. The Phoenician Scheme is a gorgeously wrapped package with nothing worth unwrapping inside. It is not enough to be beautiful, eccentric or star-studded; at some point, a film must also move us, surprise us and make us care. This one does none of the above.

The Phoenician Scheme was produced by the USA’s American Empirical Pictures and Indian Paintbrush, with Germany’s Studio Babelsberg. Universal Pictures is in charge of its international distribution.