New Release Review – “The Phoenician Scheme”

Wes Anderson‘s films are like intricately crafted dollhouses. The good ones feel human and alive, like a dollhouse a little girl has filled with her imagination. The bad ones are like a dollhouse on display in an upmarket shop window, existing to be admired rather than enjoyed. The Phoenician Scheme belongs to the latter category. It’s not quite as visually meticulous as we’ve become accustomed to from Anderson, but it still looks better than 90% of the movies that will grace cinema screens this year. Yet while it’s easy to admire the upholstery and carpentry of its sets, its story is almost impenetrably uninteresting, as are most of its characters.

Taking place in 1956 in a series of fictional Balkan…