THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME ****

 You know exactly what you're going to get from a Wes Anderson film. a totally idiosyncratic world, one indeed unique to its director. Wes Anderson's films look and sound like no others and his admirers are many but, as the old saying goes, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing and I've been finding the Anderson formula wearing rather thin of late.

"The French Dispatch" and "Asteroid City" both looked typically terrific and while they had flashes of Anderson's earlier brilliance I felt they relied too heavily on Anderson's waywardness, being mostly surface with little substance so it was with a degree of caution I approached "The Phoenician Scheme" but I'm happy to report that this not only has substance, (admittedly of the kind only Wes Anderson can supply), but style to spare and is certainly his best film since "The Grand Budapest Hotel". It may also be his funniest film to date.

The title sums it up as this film is all about The Phoenician Scheme though if you can actually figure what that is you're a better man than I. All I can say with certainty is that Benicio Del Toro plays a kind of magnate called Zsa-zsa Korda, (a bit of Trump perhaps by way of Charles Foster Kane), who wants to leave a legacy behind but needs the help of various backers to do so and so it goes with each one given a chapter of their own all the way to the daft but strangely moving denouement.

Of course, Anderson's films seldom make sense and this one makes less sense than most and yet it feels as fully formed as anything he's done with every piece fitting perfectly into place and every performer entering Anderson's world as if born to it.

Del Toro is only the linchpin of a faultless cast that also includes Micheal Cera, Alex Jennings, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Hope Davis and a delightful Mia Threapleton as Del Toro's only daughter and a very unconventional nun. Of course, if you don't 'get' Anderson you won't get this. I laughed all the way through but there were few chuckles elsewhere. This, like all his films, is one for the fan-base but it marks a real return to form and may even draw in a few converts. It shouldn't be missed.