Whether working with actors or animation, writer/director Wes Anderson is his own unique brand of crazy.
When everything clicks — as with The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, Moonrise Kingdom and Fantastic Mr. Fox— the results are imaginatively marvelous.
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| Yet another in-flight assassination attempt forces Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro, left) to take control of the plane, while Liesl (Mia Threapleton) and Bjorn (Michael Cera) watch with mounting horror. |
This one’s somewhere in between.
For starters, it’s refreshing to see that Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola have delivered an actual plot that drives the wacky action (something sorely missed in Asteroid City). Granted, it’s a dog-nuts plot, but it makes sense, and gives the primary characters genuine motivation.
Anderson also tackles some weighty concepts along the way: legacy, mortality and the final reckoning that results from one’s confrontation with God.
God, of course, is played by Bill Murray. Who else?
The art direction and production design — by Stephan O. Gessler and Adam Stockhausen, respectively — are spectacular. The latter has worked on every Anderson film since 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom, and he won a well-deserved Academy Award for The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The wildly distinctive look of an Anderson film has become legendary. His characters inhabit often static environments that sometimes feel like gigantic doll houses, with theatrical-style backdrops and finely tuned details that don’t quite exist in our workaday world: more like hyper-reality. Anderson favors color schemes in earth tones and soft pastels, which — in this case — occasionally are interrupted by Heaven’s blindingly white monochrome.
Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel constantly plays with cockeyed camera angles and forced perspective; one early sequence is entirely a ceiling’s-eye view.
All of this establishes another of Anderson’s highly mannered, theater-of-the-absurd narratives: a style you’ll either embrace as cheerfully silly ... or dismiss as ludicrous.
The time is the 1950s. Zsa-Zsa Korda (a hilariously deadpan Benicio del Toro), a notorious plutocrat industrialist loathed throughout the world, is introduced mid-flight, as a bomb explodes in the rear of his private plane. He survives the subsequent crash: the sixth recent attempt on his life by unknown parties.
His gargantuan business empire also is under threat via financial scrutiny and political pressure, most particularly — at the moment — his complex “Phoenician Scheme”: an interlocking series of railway, shipping, mining and agricultural ventures designed to dominate a (fictitious) Middle Eastern country. This venture has been jeopardized by the U.S. government’s market-manipulating act to exponentially increase the cost of the “bashable rivets” necessary for all elements of Korda’s complicated plan.
He therefore must persuade each of his investors to accept less profit than contractually promised; each meeting becomes its own distinctive chapter.
First, though — aware that he might not survive another assassination attempt — he decides to name an heir to his business throne. He ignores his nine young sons in favor of the daughter he hasn’t seen for years: a nun named Liesl (Mia Threapleton, the equally talented daughter of Kate Winslet).
Liesl regards her father warily, in part because he might have had her mother killed: an accusation Korda steadfastly denies. Even so, she ultimately agrees, albeit with conditions. Korda places her under the guidance of Norwegian family tutor — and professional entomologist — Bjorn Lund (Michael Cera, who pretty must steals the show).
And there’s no better way to teach Liesl the family business, than to bring her along during the global effort to save the Phoenician Scheme: an endeavor, thanks to her participation, which becomes more honorable and righteous as the days pass. (Slave labor? Out. Famine? Out.)
The investors, in sequence, are brothers Leland and Reagan (Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston), nightclub owner Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), American ship captain Marty (Jeffrey Wright), Korda’s cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson) and — ultimately — Korda’s brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch). To make matters trickier, events sometimes are interrupted by Sergio (Richard Ayoade), the revolutionary head of his Radical Freedom Militia Corps.
Some of these encounters are memorably amusing: the means by which Korda secures a concession from Leland and Reagan; and everything about Nubar, with Cumberbatch looking and sounding like a deranged Russian in the mold of Rasputin.
Others aren’t such a much. Actors line up to work with Anderson, but he can’t always find something worth their talent and presence. Johansson is completely wasted in a Why Did I Bother part, and a single blink will make you miss fleeting appearances by Steve Park, Willem Dafoe, Hope Davis, F. Murray Abraham and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Some also can’t handle Anderson’s deadpan delivery; all the characters here speak every line in a flat, stoic monotone ... except on the rare occasions they yell at each other.
That said, Threapleton excels at Liesl’s expressionless response to these increasingly chaotic events, and the quiet defiance with which she stands up to her imperious father. That’s an impressive feat, given that only her face and a few locks of dark hair are visible from within her nun’s habit.
Cera also is marvelous as the awkwardly shy and unexpectedly sweet Bjorn: an almost normal, real-world character amid this legion of lunatics. Even more than Del Toro, Cera understands the essential cadence of Anderson’s dialogue style, and it feels wholly natural coming from him.
Everything builds to a surprising — and yet apt — finale, with Lessons Learned Along The Way.
Anderson’s fans will adore this film, which certainly is one of his silliest. But it probably isn’t a good entry point for unfamiliar newcomers; they’d be better off starting with Moonrise Kingdom.
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