Wes Anderson isn’t in a rut, but he could do with another flop

A curious thing about Wes Anderson, the immaculately tailored king of immaculately tailored cinematic trifles, is that he doesn’t get bad reviews. Not really, anyway. His films, from the ornate The Grand Budapest Hotel to this week’s delectable The Phoenician Scheme, earn the most effusive raves imaginable or shrugging, innocuous whiffs. And that’s more or less been the case since 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a dazzling tribute to oceanic voyage that, despite its many fans, including myself, was met with such critical disdain at its time of release that it sent Anderson into an emotional tailspin.

It remains the only time in Anderson’s 12-film career (plus a handful of recent Netflix shorts) in which ill-feeling properly engulfed his output. Not that the specific criticisms back then (Anderson is “frozen into a mannerism”, wrote The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane) would necessarily feel out of place in reviews of his subsequent eight movies. Instead, those mannerisms – the obsessive detailing and fondant fancy scenery, the deadpan affect of his actors, those clean, boxy typefaces – have been doubled down upon and, moreover, embraced. So much of modern American cinema seems style-resistant, stories conveyed via sludgy, Brothers Russo-ian grey, that it feels baffling – insane, even – to condemn a filmmaker still interested in raw, aesthetic beauty.

Anderson does continue to evolve as a screenwriter, with both The Phoenician Scheme and his spacey 2023 black comedy Asteroid City awash in themes of grief and existential dread – they feel aged, mordant, and often gloomy compared to the precociousness of his earlier work. That isn’t to say, though, that there’s no stasis to his current output. Incapacitated is the package that surrounds those stories, from the way his films are sold and promoted, to the familiar faces of the travelling roadshow that make up his ensemble casts.

Familiarity isn’t a massive problem when it comes to auteurs. I can watch Anderson’s large-scale dioramas of lush, fantastical vistas just as much as I can watch Rian Johnson invert old Agatha Christie novels, or Nancy Meyers invent new sizes of kitchen. But familiarity is also safe. It’s a cosy hug. A warm blanket. Missing from Anderson’s work of late is a prickliness, or a danger. Or anything that could inspire revolt. And the key to it, I think, might be to let him flop again.

Speaking to New York Magazine this week, Anderson discussed his resistance to chasing spontaneity on set, and how – for more than 15 years – he has meticulously planned each shot of his films in “animatics”, which are essentially storyboards. They are typically used for animation – he began using them on 2009’s stop-motion Roald Dahl adaptation Fantastic Mr Fox – but he now uses them for everything.

It felt revealing. When asked where spontaneity does lie in his work, Anderson replied that it stems from his stars. “When you’re working with somebody like Benicio [Del Toro], or somebody like Timothée Chalamet, or Benedict Cumberbatch, those are all actors who dare you to capture whatever happens this time,” he explained. “They’re going to go this way, and then they’re going to go that way, and you get to say, ‘Okay, let’s see what’s going to happen here.’” But when so many of those very actors perform in that flat, characteristically Wes Anderson register, how much variation can truly be found?

Arriving shortly after The Royal Tenenbaums crystallised Anderson’s reputation as a master of studied, familial tragicomedies, The Life Aquatic was Anderson cubed: more expensive than anything he had made before or since, full of CGI and David Bowie songs, and made with a cast of A-listers stuffed into close quarters. It tracked the adventures of an eccentric oceanographer (Bill Murray) as he sought revenge against the shark that killed his partner, with Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum along for the ride. But the production proved difficult, Anderson intimated by the film’s scale and the demands suddenly placed upon him in the wake of Tenenbaums. When it opened to poor reviews, he fell into what New York Magazine termed in 2007 a “low-simmering melancholy”; ideas stalled and he left the US for an apartment in Paris to recuperate.

What materialised courtesy of that crisis was The Darjeeling Limited, a tourist odyssey in which Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman play estranged brothers shuffling through India. On the set, Anderson would be nervous and distrust his instincts. “Okay, am I doing too much of a ‘thing I do’ here?” he’d ask his crew.

The Darjeeling Limited drew a divisive response, if a little better than The Life Aquatic, and to this day, it is probably the Anderson film that inspires the most extreme stances. You can see why. It’s shaggy and unformed, as if it were made on the fly, which it sort of was. I couldn’t bear it when I first saw it, finding it so loose as to be somewhat smug. But it’s since grown on me, primarily because it exemplifies everything that Anderson has otherwise scrubbed from his subsequent work.

Over the decades that followed, and films including his beguilingly nerdy coming-of-age tale Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which earned him his first Best Director Oscar nomination, Anderson has only grown in popularity. The existential crises quelled, he has become more powerful than ever. Studios provide him creative and financial carte blanche (“For executives, supporting Wes is like collecting art,” a friend of Anderson’s told New York Magazine. “It makes them feel they have great taste”), while the sheer amount of money to be made from the idea of an Anderson aesthetic has proven infinite.

A popular Instagram account, Accidentally Wes Anderson, curates photographs of real-world sights that apparently wouldn’t look out of place in his films, while one of the earliest pop-cultural debates about AI revolved around a short-lived digital trend that created alleged Anderson-like tableaus out of thin air. All of this is, of course, nonsense – internet memes that skirt the soul of Anderson’s work and instead reduce him to a collection of bland tropes: symmetry, pastel colours, architectural whimsy.

However, it all speaks to a feeling that Anderson has become a little too big to fail, a little too comfortable with his traditional stable of tricks. It is significant, I think, that the elements of his two recent features most effusively praised are the newcomers to Club Anderson: the poignancy of Margot Robbie’s cutting-room-floor actor in Asteroid City, or the endearing silliness of Michael Cera’s professor of bugs in The Phoenician Scheme. On-screen, both feel strikingly new – shocks of growth in traditional packages. I don’t wish for Anderson to once again experience the crippling self-doubt that trailed him after The Life Aquatic, but I’d be interested to see what he’d produce if he was operating on the back foot once more. What kind of Wes Anderson would exist if the reviews became pans, the fandom got alienated, or the budgets got slashed? It could very well be a total mess. But wouldn’t that be fascinating?

‘The Phoenician Scheme’ is in cinemas from 23 May

Zelensky reveals ‘significant’ Russian losses in Kursk and says fight isn’t over

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has suffered more than 63,000 casualties in Kursk and that Ukrainian operations there continue, hours after Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the region.

“Since the start of the Kursk operation in August, the Russian army has suffered significant losses – more than 63,000 killed and wounded in that area alone,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

Earlier in the day, Mr Putin staged a visit to inspect the nuclear plant in Kursk, his first trip since Russian forces claimed they ejected Ukrainian troops from the area last month.

Mr Zelensky rejected that claim again last night and said fighting continues in two Russian regions – Kursk and Belgorod.

His comments came after Russia said it had faced an unprecedented attack from more than 370 Ukrainian drones, including almost two-dozen approaching Moscow.

Officials said airports serving the Russian capital were briefly closed to ensure the safety of flights but there were no reports of casualties.

Ukraine’s military partially claimed responsibility and confirmed it had struck the Bolkhov semiconductor plant in Oryol Oblast overnight.

Starmer forced into U-turn on winter fuel payment cuts

Sir Keir Starmer has been forced into a dramatic U-turn over the government’s controversial winter fuel payment cuts after months of mounting anger from voters and Labour MPs.

In a major climbdown over Rachel Reeves’ decision to strip payments from 10 million pensioners, the prime minister said he wanted to look at widening eligibility “as the economy improves”.

But No 10 refused to say whether the changes would be in place by this winter – or who would be affected – meaning cash-strapped pensioners could face another winter of misery.

The decision to means-test the annual payment of up to £300, rather than give it to all pensioners, was widely blamed for Labour’s disastrous recent local election results, which saw Nigel Farage’s Reform party surge to take 677 council seats in England.

It comes as Sir Keir battles to turn around his party’s fortunes amid fears of a rebellion from backbenchers over benefit cuts, anger over his language on immigration and difficult poll ratings.

Sir Keir told the Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions: “I recognise that people are still feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis, including pensioners.

“As the economy improves, we want to make sure people feel those improvements in their days as their lives go forward. That is why we want to ensure that, as we go forward, more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments.”

But Labour MPs, including Ian Lavery and Zarah Sultana on the left of the party, urged their leader to go further and reverse the cuts in full, while Welsh first minister Baroness Eluned Morgan said she wanted “significantly” more pensioners to get the cash.

The policy was one of Ms Reeves’ first announcements when she took office last summer.

Allies of the chancellor said she and Sir Keir were “united” on the U-turn, but the fact that the PM made the announcement – effectively taking ownership of the issue – will further fuel speculation about her future in the role.

Many critics of Ms Reeves accuse her of pushing a policy which had been bouncing about the Treasury for years, but was rejected by her predecessors in the job.

Downing Street later indicated that the changes would be outlined in the Budget in the autumn. But they would not be drawn on whether or not that meant more pensioners would receive the money in time for this coming winter.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch branded Sir Keir “desperate” and said the U-turn had been “inevitable”.

She also warned it would be “too late” if ministers waited until the autumn Budget to set out the details.

“If he’s waiting until the Budget it means that people are going to lose their winter fuel payment for another year,” she said.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey pressed Sir Keir to reverse the cuts to the payment in full.

Earlier, veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott likened the policy to Margaret Thatcher’s controversial poll tax in the way it had “cut through” to voters.

Caroline Abrahams, from Age UK, said the government’s winter fuel cuts had “resulted in many pensioners on low incomes missing out on money they simply couldn’t afford to lose”.

She said her organisation had seen “very significant numbers of older people too frightened to turn on their heating when it was cold, making life utterly miserable for them and putting their health at risk”. She added: “If nothing changes, next winter threatens to be just as bad”.

Independent Age’s Amy Dodge said that, as people face higher bills and rising inflation, pensioners on low incomes “need reassurance that they will be supported to heat their home next winter and beyond”.

Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, said the announcement leaves “huge questions”. She said a “sensible” solution would be to extend support to pensioners receiving housing and disability benefits, as well as those currently on Pension Credit.

“This is affordable at £300m and would benefit more than a million families,” she said.

The partial U-turn came hours after a memo leaked to The Daily Telegraph showed the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, had pushed for a radical combination of tax hikes to avoid the need for further cuts in spending.

In a memo to the chancellor ahead of March’s spring statement, she suggested reinstating the pensions lifetime allowance and changing dividend taxes.

No 10 is also facing a potential rebellion from Labour MPs next month when tough welfare cuts, including to disability payments, are due to be voted on in the House of Commons.

More than 100 Labour MPs have already signed a letter raising their concerns about the changes.

Sir Keir also faced a furious backlash from within his own party as he tried to tackle the threat posed by Mr Farage with a crackdown on immigration last week. His own MPs joined trade unions and charities in comparing his language with that of the far right and Enoch Powell after he claimed that the UK risks becoming an “island of strangers” because of migration.