Movie Review of
The PHOENICIAN Scheme
By Dan Watt
(Author of BARD: Bearer of the Gemstone and BARD: Owner of the Gemstone)
Wes Anderson’s Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a go to movie for me.
And I thoroughly enjoyed The PHOENICIAN Scheme. A movie about the 5% man who wants to build amazing constructions and his interaction with his daughter. As he tries to get investors someone once close is trying to remove him, literally. Will he succeed and is God on his side?
The main characters are highly intelligent, emotionally reserved, and straightforward—except for the shouting matches. You might say the background is often a moving tapestry of yellows and blues with turquoise dominating most of the sets. The conversations are more like soliloquys mixed with asides with the characters rarely talking over each other. With Anderson’s direction and Bruno Delbonnel’s cinematography, the imagery is bright with pastel backgrounds. The close ups are reminiscent of the early black and white closeups where the characters’ reaction and expressions are accentuated.
Benicio Del Torro is perfect in the lead. A mixture of Howard Hughes and Anthony Quinn. Creative, solid, smart, and determined.
Mia Threapleton plays an unwavering daughter who is both compassionate and hardened by life. She keeps her emotions in check but not her thoughts.
Michael Cera is more than the smiling German entomologists he portrays but you’ll have to watch it to find out what that means.
The movie’s atmosphere is similar to sitting in a bar where the jazz music is soft and comfortable one moment than lively and structurally chaotic the next.
Kudos to the writers: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
This is a smart script with just the right amount of social, economic, and religious commentary mixed in with a good amount of action.
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