Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Phoenician Scheme

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Wes Anderson's new film The Phoenician Scheme is classic Wes Anderson, complete with a great cast delivering heightened dialogue and stylized cinematography. It stars Benicio del Toro as one of Europe's richest men, an amoral industrialist, who, along with his daughter (Mia Threapleton) and a tutor (Michael Cera), travels to convince his business partners to fund his latest venture. But where does the film rank among Anderson's past movies?Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Wes Anderson's new film The Phoenician Scheme is, well, it's classic Wes Anderson, really. For those of us who love his stuff, it gives us everything we're looking for in his idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking. It's got a great cast delivering heightened dialogue. It's stylized cinematography. Look, it's Wes Anderson, you know the drill. Not everyone loves what he does. We should acknowledge that, of course. But if you do, where does the Phoenician scheme rank among all the films he's made?

I'm Glenn Weldon, and joining me on NPR's pop culture. happy. I were to talk about all that is Bea Parker. She's one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast. Hey, Parker. Hello. Welcome back. Also with us is writer Chris Klimmick, hey Chris? Hey, Glenn, myself, I feel very safe. There we go. The Phoenician scheme is set in the 1950s and stars Benicio del Toro as

Zaja Corta, one of Europe's richest men and amoral industrialist. Normal people want the basic human rights that accompany citizenship in any sovereign nation. I don't. I don't live anywhere. I'm not a citizen at all. I don't need my human rights. His latest venture is a massive infrastructure project in someplace called modern, greater independent Phoenicia. He's got lots of business partners in this scheme, played by a series of Anderson favorites like Tom Hanks, Brian Cranston, Riz Ahmed, and Jeffrey Wright. What's more, he's been experiencing weird, spiritual,

near-death visions, which may explain why he summoned his daughter Liesel to his side. She's played by Mia Threpleton. They have a fraught relationship. He sent her to a convent when she was five. She's now a nun in training. And Jaja appoints her his successor. They travel with Jaja's young entomology tutor, trying to convince his business partners to cough up Mordaux,

even as they dodge repeated attempts on Jaja's life. That tutor, by the way, is played by Wes Anderson first-timer Michael Serra, bringing with him a sort of cosmic sense of filmmaker, actor inevitability, really. The Phoenician scheme is in theaters now. Chris, kick us off. What'd you make of it? Well, would it kill Wes Anderson to make a bad movie once in a while just to give us something to talk about? He's very steady. He's, he's very consistent. And I come in regretting that there isn't something more incendiary or exciting that I can say other than I basically liked it. Okay. I like Wes Anderson. This is a guy who has defined his own aesthetic. I'd call it inimitable if other people had not imitated it to great effect sometimes. Thinking of that Saturday, live horror movie Wes Anderson trailer from a few years back. Sure. There will be a temptation to say like, oh, he's just iterating, right?

He's not innovating. But when you create your own aesthetic that is instantly recognizable, I would argue even to people who dislike his films or maybe haven't even seen his films, that is a triumph. I don't think this is my favorite Wes Anderson film. But on the other hand, another unique feature of his entire filmography is I've never had one of his films go down in my estimation when I've seen it a second time. time. They've only ever gone up, even movies that didn't really grab me initially. My question after this one, where's the grief? Do you remember, Glenn, a certain fast food chain that used a

slogan that rhymes with, where's the grief? I assume you did there. Because in every Wes Anderson movie, we're usually circling around to a core of loss of regret, you know, some somber undercurrent beneath all of these wonderful jokes, visual jokes, verbal jokes, set pieces. Keith Fipps, pointed this out in his review on his substack, The Reveal, that he shares with Scott Tobias about how this Wes Anderson movie does not have a point like the balcony scene from Asteroid City, where we get a very brief but profound kind of summing up of everything that the rest of the movie is swimming in. This film, even though it is, yes, there are many of his familiar themes. There's a father-daughter reconciliation. There's a sort of a moral guy, arguably, maybe

becoming a slightly more human person. But it doesn't. doesn't all come together in that profound, recognizable way. So I enjoyed it very much. But yeah, I'm left with that question that Wendy's asked us in 1984. Where's the grief? I mean, you say recognizable. Some would say human. Where's the human connection here? But what do you think, Parker? I mean, I thought for a Wes Anderson film, it was right down the middle. Like, it is very taut. He has a very specific aesthetic that is, at this point, he's like a well-boiled machine when it comes to how his world and how these films are constructed. He's like a sentient corduroy shoe.

Like, I get, I know what I'm getting. But it's also just like I wanted more. It's so, like, tightly orchestrated, but also rang a bit hollow for me because there is, like, this very surface-level approach to what we were experiencing, even though, you know, there are, like, these existential questions that are hovering over this, like, very, taught story? Yeah, look, I think going forward I may need to recuse myself from reviewing Wes Anderson films because I certainly don't think they're critique proof. I don't think that.

I kind of feel like they might be critic proof if the critic in question is me. I mean, I don't know. I have been reading these reviews, which are very mixed, and, you know, that's happened over the years. A lot of his reviews are mixed, and I nod my head vigorously whenever I, you know, hear from any detractor, right? I get what they're saying. He's mannered, he's tweed. he's fussy. His films are puzzle boxes or dioramas. They're contrived. They're emotionally cold.

I would say this film goes further than being cold. I think it's kind of emotionally Kelvin Zero for me. There's also something a little self-satisfied in his films, right? A little patrician, elitist, snooty, maybe. But I am a sucker not for necessarily these individual films, but for the pursuit that's involved. Does that make sense? Like the construct of it all. Yeah.

I mean, we both talked about it. The intellectual and aesthetic pursuit. of creating this very singular world, this facade. People ding the facade. I like this little pocket universe that he and only he exists in. And when I read, you know, the critics and regular Joe is complaining about how there's a sameness here. I mean, Miyazaki has a sameness. Like, this is the sandbox this guy's playing in.

Yeah. As you both alluded to, he's his own genre. So you get the bad dad, the dissolution daughter, the fumbling suitor, the mannered speech, the stillness, the symmetry. Fine, but you know what? In opera, they sing a lot. So I can't, this is why I feel like I might need to just remove myself from the critical pursuit of reviewing these films. Just because, I mean, I wouldn't place this. That's it.

I wouldn't place this in my top five, maybe not even my top ten. This is a comedy. I didn't laugh once. That's got a... I did laugh. I mean, I did have a big, goofy grin on my face throughout. And if I had to point or try to figure out why, maybe it was that the plot device at the center of this particular. film, which is visiting each investor one at a time, was so mechanical because it's a device,

right, that it doesn't even faint toward what the notion that plot grows out of character and real human interaction. It just feels like infrastructure laid over top of structure. I don't know. I just rolled over and wanted it to scratch my tummy, and it did. Yeah, I'm wearing my Wes Anderson character t-shirt here, and I noticed when I put it on, that there is actually a loose thread, like hanging out to one side, which I feel was like the kind of thing that should not exist in the West Anderson universe. I mean, I agree in that it's like pizza. You can never go wrong with us with any kind of pizza. Controversial opinion, I don't care for Grand Budapest Hotel. Sure. I love the French dispatch. And also I'm fully aware that I am not the target audience for a West Anderson film as, you know, a young black woman. I'd go see them anyway. There is an earnest in the pursuit. I love that he's created this kind of actors gang

that he can rely on time and time again, which, I mean, side note, I'm so shocked that this is Michael Sarah's first time in West Anderson film when he fits so perfectly in that universe. Absolutely. And, like, you know, a younger me was like, oh, this is minds me of him in, like, youth and revolt.

This is so cool. He was the most delightful part of the film for me. and the part that's shown the most because he gets to have the most fun, I think, besides maybe Brian Cranston and Tom Hanks playing basketball. Right. But I can also want more. You know what? As a person who, like, I know that he is currently in his mid-century short story bag. It's like he wants to be in like John Sheaver and Rawl doll.

And you know what? Live your life. But also, you know, you can have your aesthetic, but also move that aesthetic forward. Exactly. Do you feel like he has like been this lock? and stuck in this like aesthetic spot. He can't like grow it. The mid-century thing is,

is something I wanted to bring up because I was trying to think about when the last time Wes Anderson made a film set in the present day was. And even, you know, like the present of Rushmore or Tenenbaum. Yeah, like it still never feels like our present, right? It does feel like this hermetic world.

But, you know, this film is set in the 50s. Asteroid City is in the same period. That might be telling in a way, right? It's just another level of remove another fantasy, right? Because the past is a foreign country. You know, it's beyond all of us, right? We can't get there. We certainly can't.

Okay. So after the break, we'll talk about some of the standout performances. Welcome back. Look, there's going to be a lot of people talking about how, just was your point, Parker, Michael Serra seems like he's always been in a Wes Anderson film. Like he brings a bit of Wes Anderson to every project he's in. Yeah. He's always been the caretaker.

at the overlook, right? But I want to talk a little bit about Riz Ahmed in this film. This is also his first Anderson film. And that is not a pairing I saw coming because Ahmed to me is a much more... Down to Earth? I don't know, bodied, emotionally available creature of physicality. He's got such emotional vulnerability and soulfulness. I think that was a part that called for an actor that has his kind of presence.

You know that he's a prince. He's a regal figure. More or less. I mean, I think he has the right kind of presence for that, truly. It's not a showcase for him the way something like Sound of Metal is, of course, but I think he is well deployed here. I actually love the brief Cranston and Hank segment as like these two potential investors are just a couple of jocks who want to settle this question of who's going to pay for the gap, the floating financial loss that is sort of the Mcuffin in this movie with a little two-on-two B-ball. I don't know who I think it was secretly a maybe in their former life, maybe Cranston. But I thought all that was very funny and I was here for it. British actor Richard Iowadi. He plays the terrorist leader, Sergio. He was in Wes Anderson's universe before in the short film,

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, but that is another guy who, it makes me happy that I didn't realize there was a Richard Iowadi shaped hole in the West Anderson filmography, and that has been filled. This is a guy who feels like he belongs here. Let's talk about Mia Threpleton because, I mean, this is the first thing I've really seen her in. She is playing a familiar Anderson type of the kind of disillusioned laconic woman, young woman. Yeah, she's kind of the Margot Tenenbaum in this, right? I think she as the nun, like, I thought she was funny.

I thought her face had such presence that when you're a nun and your habit is covering everything, but like you have to have a face card to be able to do what was Anderson wants. That's right. I felt like she was really going toe to toe with Benicio del Toro character, which again, like, in the pantheon of disaffected patriarchs who needed to grow heart. Like, this is, like, Royal and Margot Tenenbaum. Right. You need someone to be able to be that parallel, that mirror for this formidable actor and this formidable figure. And I thought that she did, like, a great job.

Yeah. Anderson seems to pick up a new player, you know, with each film. Even if it's someone who's, like, in the case of. Like in the case of Benicio del Toro, who really, really comes on his own in the Anderson company with this film, he was in the French dispatch, but in a much smaller, much less verbal role. You know, so here's the guy this time in the same way, like, we picked up Tom Hanks in Asteroid City and carry him along. And I, you know, I love that. I hope we'll get another, you know, small but memorable part for him in the next Wes Anderson movie. But for me, yeah, I did not have any prior sense of Ms. Thruppleton.

I hadn't seen her in anything before. I thought she was great, but I wasn't bringing in any baggage the way I am with Benicio del Toro, who, I mean, he was in the usual suspects 30 years ago. I mean, dude's been around, you know, and I feel like he was still showing me something of him that I hadn't seen from him before in this. No, I was thinking about that when, I going watching it, there was a scene where it's like Tim and Jeffrey Wright, and I immediately think of Bosquiat. And I was like, oh, these two, like, incredible character actors in a totally different world. are having this moment. And I was like, I was really excited about that. There is a thread to this film that we haven't talked about yet,

which is about Zhaja's visions of heaven. This group of actors that we see up there as the biblical troupe. There's a prophet. There's an angel. There's Zhaja's dead first wife. I was surprised by that. And at first I thought it was a bit. And it kind of, it's not not a bit, right?

I mean, like, I think of him as a ruthlessly secular filmmaker. Do those moments come off? like a bit or do they come off as sincere ultimately for you? I mean, I think that along with Asteroid City where there's like the acting troupe who's trying to have this like existential earnest conversation that's happening in black and white. And I feel like that's kind of happening here where maybe like Anderson is trying to figure out something for himself and we're just all along for the ride. So I went along with it as like an earnest pursuit.

even if that is where we get like an earnest Anderson. That's where we get like grief and all that, but it has to be a step removed and in black and white for him to be able to capture it and understand it. Right. I feel like questions of sincerity kind of don't apply to us, Anderson. You know, I would don't think he's ever put a frame of anything that he doesn't fully believe in on screen.

The technical mastery, the aesthetic stuff like that. He means that with his whole heart. So asking, you know, whether like these little, interstitial sequences that are, for example, black and white in a film that's otherwise color, whether he's really bearing his soul to us or whether he's being ironic or distant or mocking. Like, I just, no, I feel like he means all of it. The reason I'm asking about these visions of heaven is that they feed into what is at the end of the day a redemption arc for this main character, who is a billionaire? He's a munitions guy. He is active in a slave trade. Is this

a protagonist for today? Is this somebody we can kind of get behind? Is it supposed to, we're supposed to get behind? I mean, we're kind of stuck in the world of, like, thinking of, like, the White Lotus and Succession, where it's rich people behaving the way that they behave and we kind of, like, get on the bus or off it. But, like, maybe that's evolving. Maybe things are changing, and we, like, maybe this is, like, the tipping point,

and we're less likely to embrace these kind of characters. But I also think that's going to, that might limit Anderson's storytelling. Yeah, because it does seem like this is a bit further than we've gotten before, right? We've had arrascible grumps like Royal Tannenbaum. We've had bad guys. We've had bad dads, a plenty. Have we had murderers? Have we had murderers?

I mean, I'm thinking about where did the whole Marvel project start off? And it started with Iron Man, right, which was a story of an arms dealer and a guy who, you know, has a, you know, forced into a moral awakening and tries to make amends by being a superhero, I guess. And, you know, in sort of predictable fashion, Zaja Corda, he does get his comeuppance. So, you know, we can ask whether that is a reflection of his own inner moral evolution or just of, you know, circumstances being imposed upon him. But again, I don't think the movie has to tell us that. I think it's okay for us to make our own decision about that. Yeah. And to your point, maybe what I'm reacting to is events outside the film, right?

Where billionaires are acting with impunity. And that doesn't seem to me like the kind of character, the kind of person who should get off, spoiler, as free as this guy gets off. Maybe that's it. And that's not fair to the film. I think what I disagree with you about is I don't think the film lets him off off the hook in quite the way that you're suggesting. No. Oh, Parker. Settle.

Settle the difference here. Who's right? I think he gets what he gets. And it's more about like softening his heart than his wallet and inevitably he gets both. Yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying.

Look, this is a very dense film. We have a lot to unpack here. There's only so much we can get to. There's this whole thread about Weasel's Mother's Death we haven't really touched on. Listeners, I feel like we've only just loosened the lid of the jar.

Now it's your turn to tell us what you think about the Phoenician scheme. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH and on letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR pop culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. And that brings us to the end of our show. Be a partner, Chris Klimick. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Glenn. Thanks for having me. This episode was produced by Hufza Fathema and Mike Katzif and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Audio engineering was performed by Sino LaFredo and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to

Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all next time.