Everything we have learnt to love about Wes Anderson is present in the director’s latest. The perfectly symmetrical composition of his photography; the absurdly starry cast made of A-listers who are content to play the most fleeting of cameos, (here the cast list includes Tom Hanks, Willem Dafoe and Scarlett Johansson), and an absurd comedy plot that reveals something of human nature. Anderson’s case study here is a fictional tycoon Tsa Tsa Korda, played by a dashing and deadpan Benicio del Toro.
Korda is so transgressive in his business dealing, competitors and even states want him dead. Between assassination attempts the businessman is setting up his grandest scheme yet. It will plunder the resources of an under-developed country that is often war. Slavery will supply cheap labour.
His moral compass is nudged to north when he decides to bypass his sons in his search of offspring to take over his business, and instead opts for his only daughter – Liesel played by the excellent Mia Threapleton (daughter of Kate Winslet) who out-deadpans her dad.
Every time he is nearly killed judgment is passed by gatekeepers to Heaven (among them Dafoe) who are overseen by Billy Murray’s barely-there God.
