The Phoenician Scheme opens on board a private plane. It’s 1950 and we are somewhere ‘high above the Balkan flatlands’. One passenger is Anatol Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro). It’s safe to say that if there’s one thing that is utterly watchable about this film, it’s Del Toro’s face: those sleepy, sexy eyes combined with facial features that have grown more crumpled and expressive with time, make him a mesmerising and alluring screen presence.
Whether that is enough to keep you on board for the 105 minutes of Wes Anderson’s latest venture (which he also wrote and produced), appearing in Cannes in competition, probably depends on how much you love Anderson’s oeuvre and how forgiving you are of his flimsy tales.
