No matter how much some may tend to resist it, or the number of times the same trite “style over substance” argument is brought out to diminish his work, we simply cannot deny that Wes Anderson is not only a profoundly gifted filmmaker, but one of the most important filmmakers of his generation. After what seemed to be a few years in which he was veering towards self-parody, and where the argument that he focuses less on the story and more on the style had some credibility, he steadily started to venture outwards, retaining his usual style but slowly becoming a much more mature, self-assured filmmaker who no longer needed to convince his detractors that he was a unique voice, but instead someone worthy of standing amongst the great artists of the 21st century. As someone who was partially agnostic towards his work in the period between Moonrise Kingdom and The French Dispatch (the latter a film I initially felt cold towards, but have slowly developed a flowering affection for as time has progressed), I’ve been beyond thrilled to see that Anderson has not only undergone a substantial return to form, he’s somehow better than ever. His most recent offering is amongst his best, with The Phoenician Scheme being absolutely stellar in terms of both concept and execution. The film follows Zsa Zsa Korda, the world’s richest man and someone who has always existed on the margins, preferring to live his life as both a recluse and a fugitive – but when he realises that he cannot survive every assassination attempt thrown at him, he decides to get his affairs in order, which includes enlisting his estranged daughter (now a nun) to act as the executor of his estate in the likely case of his death, as well as working to complete an ambitious project, which involves meeting with a variety of investors to garner their support, which naturally does not turn out the way he expected. A wonderfully funny, heartfelt comedy that sees Anderson crafting yet another combination of joy and melancholy, The Phoenician Scheme is a tremendous work, featuring many of the qualities that we have not only come to appreciate from Anderson, but outright admire, all packaged into one of the more daring and provocative works of his illustrious and acclaimed career.

As with every one of his films, Anderson finds himself succumbing increasingly more reliant on more complex plots – and while in some cases this would be a sign of lacklustre skill and an inability to edit his work during the conceptual stage, its gotten to the point where we can actually not only appreciate these over-the-top, winding narrative paths, but actively anticipate them, becoming part of his artistic identity and one of the primary reasons he manages to package so much into relatively small amounts of time. The core of The Phoenician Scheme is built around the story of the world’s richest man who is trying to juggle evading arrest, avoiding being assassinated and reconnecting with his daughter, with whom he has a fraught relationship at the best of times. Anderson is crafting perhaps his most daring film to date in terms of the commentary that exists right at the centre of the story – this is a razor-sharp satire about global politics, espionage and business, and while has never avoided tackling more complicated themes in the past, this is the first film in which these subjects are front-and-center, driving the plot and building most of its momentum from the whip-smart approach to the narrative that the director takes throughout the story. His focus is quite clear, exploring the relationship between the wealthy elite, and their ability to essentially exist as tangible deities, money becoming their primary passport to lives of luxury, and the people who they exploit, whether through active participation in their oppression (who would have imagined Anderson would make a film about slavery?) or through simply being completely oblivious to the consequences of their actions, believing that those lower on the social ladder can easily bear the brunt of the high society and their tendency towards overt exploitation. Anderson’s incredulity towards the direction in which the world is heading is evident throughout this film, and he reconfigures his confusion, anger and outright frustration into yet another delightfully odd satire, using many of his usual techniques to create a very unique blend of espionage thriller and dark comedy, which is entirely unexpected in terms of the tone, but also very much within his wheelhouse, indicating that he is far from the one-trick pony that many of his detractors (past and present) tend to weaponise against him in their criticisms of his work.

Yet, there is so much more to The Phoenician Scheme than just a labyrinthine story of controversial business dealings, geopolitical conflict and criticism of the upper class and their tendency to exploit those below them. Anderson has made it clear that these concepts are all fascinating to him, but they’re not enough to impel him to active explore them as the driving themes of his film – but it does take almost the entirety of this narrative for us to realise that what he is doing here is not merely a tremendously exciting spy comedy, but instead a deeply moving story about family, which is a theme that is much more analogous to what we expect from the director’s work. Much like his previous film (and to an extent The French Dispatch), Anderson includes a recurring set of interludes that are marginally related to the narrative, but also exist in a slight different reality – in this case, we see the protagonist in the afterlife, forced to witness testimonies that condense a life filled with betrayal, obstruction of justice and exploitation, making it very clear that eternal bliss is not necessarily something that he should be afforded, even when he makes a compelling case for his actions. The Phoenician Scheme is perhaps Anderson’s most religious film to date – many of his films have explored faith and belief in various ways, and while he is not necessarily someone who we can considered driven by religion as a theme, he is also not entirely secular, using the subject to comment on society and its values, even if it can sometimes simply be exploring how different people use belief to justify certain actions. Far from a devotional film, but rather one in which the director seems to be grappling with his existential crises, the film captures some vivid ideas that are very much rooted in Anderson’s personal quandaries. It’s a film that is really about redemption more than anything else – it uses religious imagery and iconography to get this message across, but ultimately it doesn’t rely on the specific elements, instead attempting to capture the spirit of the human condition through telling the story of a man driven to the point where he simply cannot avoid the act of self-reflection, discovering that there is a freedom in seeking forgiveness that no money or power could ever provide.

Considering the panoply of themes that guide and inform The Phoenician Scheme, it’s not surprising that we find that Anderson is experimenting in various ways – and the most obvious example of this is in the tone. While it is still very much cut from the same idiosyncratic, offbeat fabric as his previous works, the film is somewhat more serious – the humour is a lot darker and more bleak, with an increased amount of graphic violence (which still somehow manages to come across as wholeheartedly charming) and a more downbeat tone in various parts. It’s very much a comedy, albeit one that doesn’t rely on an almost childlike affection for its characters, and instead focuses on developing its ideas in conjunction with a more desolate sense of humour. There are several moments in which we actually begin to genuinely believe that the director was making a film that would have a happy ending, and actually result in something much less positive. However, Anderson doesn’t peddle in emotional desolation, and we find that The Phoenician Scheme is somehow both his most bleak film, and the one that contains the most sincere and meaningful emotions – and considering every one of his films (even those which border on self-parody) tend to be a blend of off-the-wall humour and heartfelt, poetic emotions, the balance between them being what keeps us so wholeheartedly invested and engaged throughout. Considering the wealth of themes that drive this film and make it such a complex piece of storytelling, it’s not surprising that there would be a concerted effort to make sure the execution matched the ideas – every joke is coupled with a moment of deep reflection, every quirk complemented with something more sombre and quiet. This is certainly not a sepulchral, gloomy treatise on capitalism that we may expect, but it does often feel as if Anderson is bordering on nihilistic at certain points, before reconfiguring the narrative to be an earnest reflection on his own internal quandaries, ending with perhaps the most subtle but somehow genuinely beautiful conclusions of any of his films. Emotions can be challenging to get right, and Anderson has occasionally struggled to find the right balance – but his gradual development into a filmmaker whose focus is less on the style on its own, and more on what he uses it to convey, is one of the many reasons for his continued rise in importance.

As we would expect, The Phoenician Scheme finds Anderson once again populating his stories with an extensive cast of characters, employing a large ensemble to bring his vision to life. He once again dips from his usual pool of collaborators, but makes some intriguing changes in terms of how he crafts the ensemble – the story is essentially a three-hander, focusing on the wealthy fugitive, his estranged daughter and the tutor he hired for his children, whom he promotes to his administrative secretary. These three roles are played by actors only marginally related to his usual band of regular actors – del Toro has previously worked with Anderson in The French Dispatch (which some consider to be the best performance of his career, an opinion that definitely has some credibility), while Michael Cera surprisingly makes his debut with the director, and newcomers Mia Threapleton (whose mother Kate Winslet has previously been courted by the director to appear in one of his films, but has yet to do so) makes quite an impression in a performance that will likely be her breakthrough – her previous work has been quite paltry, but this performance will immediately skyrocket her to worldwide recognition, since its not an easy feat to be barely known but to essentially co-lead such a large production. They’re all terrific, and fit perfectly into Anderson’s world, with del Toro proving that he is one of the most charismatic actors of his generation, and someone who commands the screen like few possibly could. The rest of the film is populated by a range of wonderful actors, all of whom occupy quite small roles, but nonetheless still leave an enormous impression – Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Mathieu Amalric, Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks and a range of other terrific performers hold court as supporting players, creating such a memorable ensemble in which they may not be on screen for long, but still are invaluable contributors to realising Anderson’s vision and creating such an unforgettable narrative that is built almost entirely by their exceptional work.

However, as tremendous as the cast may be, we can’t solely attribute the success of The Phoenician Scheme to only the actors – they’re merely players in the director’s world, and he creates something that is once again beautifully striking in terms of the aesthetic and other creative elements that are intrinsically connected to the underlying identity of the film. In another collaboration with director of photography Bruno Delbonnel (who takes the reigns from Robert Yeoman, who previously shot every one of the director’s works, and proved to be as essential a collaborator as any of the actors that we see on screen), Anderson develops a visually striking film that could be considered his most beautiful – in both the main narrative and the interludes that take place in the afterlife, the film is an absolutely astonishing piece of cinema. The colour segments take their cue from the Golden Age of Hollywood, with lush colours, expansive sets in which the artifice is barely concealed but yet still extremely endearing, evoking the spirit of the likes of Powell and Pressburger, Vincente Minnelli and David Lean, while the afterlife segments are in stunning black-and-white, with sets that remind us of the peak of German Expression – sharp lines, minimalistic set dressing and surfaces at different levels serving both a logistical and narrative purpose. In a career that has been defined by his visual aesthetic, The Phoenician Scheme is maybe the most stunning film Anderson has ever made, and his willingness to experiment with different styles (rather than solely depending on the symmetry for which he is usually known) immediately indicates that he is continuing to develop his style – every film he makes it somehow more gorgeous than the last, and even if The Phoenician Scheme somehow proves to be the peak of his style, it’ll be wholeheartedly well-earned. The film also features the most recent reunion between Anderson and Alexandre, another invaluable collaborator whose gentle, stunning compositions are the heart and soul of the director’s work. It’s a magnificent piece of filmmaking, with the execution being just as impressive as the ideas lingering beneath the surface.

The Phoenician Scheme is a remarkable film, a simple but moving exploration of certain themes that we may be surprised to find populating an Anderson film, but which make perfect sense once we see them in motion, any reluctance at the idea of the esteemed director working in a slightly more serious key being disproven once we witness the extent to which he goes to develop these ideas and prove that there is more beneath the surface than any of us may be able to imagine. It’s a wonderful film, filled to the brim with heart and soul – while he has strained in the past to infuse his films with the necessary emotions to match their narrative complexities and visually arresting aesthetics, Anderson easily resolves all of this by creating a story built entirely from the most human of ideas, leaving no room for even an ounce of ambiguity towards his intentions. Instead, his penchant for peppering his films with more vague, elusive components comes through in the conversations surrounding faith, identity and the role we play in creating a particular vision of society. It’s remarkably compelling filmmaking, a carefully curated series of moments handcrafted by a director who is only getting more daring and adventurous with age. Having established his niche and style, Anderson now has the opportunity to experiment, tinkering with the elements with which he is usually associated, stretching himself in unexpected but still incredibly appropriate ways, and generally just being a wholeheartedly delightful artist whose vision is matched with his skill. As one of his most lyrical, moving films to date, The Phoenician Scheme is yet another tremendous entry into his exceptional body of work, which is only becoming more vitally important to the current cinematic landscape, which unfortunately seems to be in danger of losing the originality, heartfulness and commitment that gave people like Anderson and many of his peers their careers in the first place. Original, daring and provocative, The Phoenician Scheme is a terrific work, and one of the many clear examples towards not only the director’s gifts, but his personal curiosities, blending the delightfully curious with the profoundly melancholic, a perfect combination.