The stars happily align for Wes Anderson’s latest ‘The Phoenician Scheme’
A true auteur writing designing directing producing creating his movies Wes Anderson at has become an international draw with highly personal idiosyncratic films The Phoenician Scheme opening nationwide Friday continues in this Andersonian galaxy with an elaborate convoluted plot about the richest man in the world Benicio del Toro s Anatole Zsa-Zsa Korda planning to leave his fortune to the daughter Liesl that he s never known Liesl a name right out of The Sound of Music is in a convent planning her life as a nun After making the movie maybe seeing the movie when we had it all put together I think sometimes you sort of realize what you had in mind Anderson announced in a virtual press conference with cast members But you re not totally conscious of it I advised this to my agent and he noted But I don t understand How could you not know that My thought was that I didn t realize that was obvious The whole story of the movie this whole mission that he goes on in our movie he s being confronted with the possibility of his death He s dying again and again in fact He has his business plan that he wants to make sure it goes through But maybe from the beginning in a way his whole business plan is really a mechanism for him to get back together with her his daughter Liesl He s acting like he s making her his successor but really it s more about what s going to happen between the two of them right now It s almost like the business plan almost becomes like a ritual for him to be reunited with his daughter And in that sense his plan goes great For Bryan Cranston this Scheme was a chance to work with Tom Hanks Tom and I arrived at the same time in Berlin at Babelsberg Studio And until you see the cartoon as Wes puts it with the full animatic film where he voices all the characters until you certainly see that it s not inevitably clear where he s going Because the scripts are very dense in detail there is no skimming Everything in a Wes Anderson movie is very specific If you miss one little bit it s not going to track About the dialog del Toro added there were a couple moments where I went to Wes and commented Maybe we can take this dialog out Only it wasn t as good I had to put it back That s why I couldn t join these people every day for dinner I had to go up into my room and talk to myself to memorize the next day s dense dialogue scene The Phoenician Scheme opens Friday Wes Anderson attends the Focus Features' premiere of The Phoenician Scheme at Jazz at Lincoln Center last week in New York Photo by Evan Agostini Invision AP
