Directed by Wes Anderson | Written by Anderson and Roman Coppola | 101 min | ▲▲

By my count this is the third of Wes Anderson’s current chapter, this particular stage in his hyper-formal, hyper-art designed films eschewing locations outside a studio. It started with The French Dispatch. I felt alienated by that film, but then was on a flight and wound up watching it again, and then, immediately, once again. That doesn’t happen very often, but that flight completely turned me around on the film. The next one, Asteroid City, also left me a bit at odds, but that one I haven’t revisited yet. Now we have The Phoenician Scheme. It has left me entirely cold.

Anderson goes full political satire/thriller with this one. It’s 1950, and ruthless industrialist Anatole Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) has just survived the most recent of many assassination attempts, usually involving the sabotage of a plane he’s on. This most recent brush with death inspires him to make peace with his estranged daughter, Catholic noviciate, Liesl (Mia Threapleton, who I understand is the daughter of Kate Winslet). He’d like to will her his estate over the nine younger sons he has living across the street. Rumour has it he murdered their mothers.

There’s still business to be done — he has a plan to swindle investors on a slave-labour project in Phoenicia in a series of meetings with them, his daughter and tutor-cum-personal administrator Bjorn (Michael Cera) in tow, this while international interests look to kill him.

What follows is an episodic, stagey tale studded with stars in small, supporting roles. When you’ve got Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston as brothers who feature in about five minutes of movie time and three lines each, it almost seems like a waste, but the same arguments could be made about Scarlett Johansson, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Richard Ayoade, and Benedict Cumberbatch (sporting fantastic facial hair and contact lenses). The thing is, Anderson is so fascinated by the convolutions of his plot he requires his massively talented cast to carry and deliver the requisite emotional impact through deadpan line deliveries. Despite their diligent efforts, it just doesn’t come across.

This is especially the case in a series of interstitial black-and-white dream sequences allowing us to see into Korda’s subconscious, where he’s being put on trial before he can get into heaven, involving Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and, notably, Bill Murray as God. I know Anderson’s films are largely comedic, but they tend to work best when there’s a sincere footing beneath all the irony and visual symmetry — the exploration of fascism in The Grand Budapest Hotel, for instance. That’s entirely absent here, but for a few moments between del Toro and Threapleton as they work through a growing, troubled bond between father and daughter — the scenes of them drinking and smoking (Bjorn also plays a role) do find a charm.

There’s always a lot to admire in Anderson’s distinct production design — nobody is making movies like he does, and that fact demands we take him seriously. But if it doesn’t serve an emotional truth then all those tableaus and details become elements to amuse while the picture commits to its contrivance, here largely scored by Stravinsky.

I’m sure I’m not the first one to notice this, but thinking back to Anderson’s less mannered, earlier movie, Rushmore, it feels like he’s now making movies the way Max Fischer put together his theatrical productions. And like Max, he’s deeply monoptical. He’s someone who keeps doing the same bit, relentlessly, thinking it’s funny or brilliant, but he doesn’t realize nobody’s laughing anymore.