Riveting Comedy of Father/Daughter Strife Posits, “How will Wes Anderson Out-Wes-Anderson Himself This Time?”
DIRECTED BY WES ANDERSON/2025
A common phrase said whenever a new Wes Anderson movie comes out is how the director’s latest is his “most Wes Anderson.” Seen at the top of comment sections, this statement surprisingly is not inaccurate in how to describe his last few films. Besides the more superficial expansion of his style, like a gigantic cast of A-list actors or incorporating black-and-white and color cinematography to match his highly-controlled symmetrical worlds, his films have become more epic in scope. The French Dispatch entangled itself in capturing the spirit of journalism while also being a melancholic anthology of art, youth movements, and crime shown in a single French city while being about the death of the titular journal’s editor in chief. Asteroid City complicated Anderson’s signature style into a breakdown of artificiality, signified by the film’s play-within-a-TV-Program-within-a-movie where characters in both mediums are grappling with the unknown, death, and the political turmoil of mid-20th century America. The director has proven to be more and more ambitious with each subsequent work, making his newest film The Phoenician Scheme interesting in how it supports the director’s journey in out-Wes-Andersoning himself and defying that claim.
Anderson’s latest starts off as seemingly straight-forward, opening with an attempted assassination for Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda (Benicio Del Toro), a ruthless businessman involved in industry and arms trading. Being one of many attempts on his life, this one ruffles Korda enough to contact his estranged daughter-turned-nun Sister Liesel (Mia Threapleton) to prepare her for running the company she will inevitably inherit. While obviously using the opportunity as a way to bond with her before he goes, Korda’s emphasis with her controlling his empire only being a trial period, along with Liesel’s disagreements with her father’s capitalistic mindset and treatment of his nine adopted young sons (all of whom would get nothing in the will), bring out the friction in their relationship.
It isn’t until a secret committee of business and political rivals of Korda fix the price of rivets that the two, with timid tutor/entomologist Bjørn (Michael Cera), go on a trip through the country of Phoenicia, where Korda plans to fix the financial gap between several projects he’s involved in by swindling his investors and business partners to cover more of the budget. Doing this, he would finally be able to complete his dream of overhauling the infrastructure of Phoenicia.
With this convoluted business strategy, Anderson purposefully overwhelms with his setup only to give the simplest payoff. An example of this is during their first meeting, when the trio, alongside Prince Farouk of Phoenicia (Riz Ahmed) meet with angered associates Leland and Reagan (Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston), who have stopped construction of an underground railway in protest of Korda’s demands. The only way they decide to settle their dispute is through a game of Horse.
As each business deal goes by, revelations are made, identities are revealed, numerous assassinations are attempted, and beyond it all, a connection forms between father and daughter. That really becomes the center for the film’s labyrinthine story of espionage and trading, which is thankfully the only complicated factor involved in this nicely made comedy.
Like any Wes Anderson film, The Phoenician Scheme hits all its marks. Adam Stockhausen’s production design brings out the whimsy and theatrical absurdity in the film’s setting of 1950s Europe, paired well with the comedically flat and symmetrical camerawork of Bruno Delbonnel, replacing the director’s prior cinematographer Robert Yeoman.
The cast remains full of familiar faces alongside newcomers in Anderson’s playhouse of actors, including a scene-stealing Cera and Threapleton giving an impressive performance in her first lead role. Del Toro, returning after only appearing in The French Dispatch, fits in well as the deadpan Korda, bringing intrigue to such a stone-hearted lead.
In fact, with the style, performances, and writing remaining as effective as ever, it can’t help but feel like the standard Wes Anderson film. It doesn’t have the ambition of French Dispatch, nor the vulnerability of Asteroid City, feeling like a return-to-form of his earlier works, down to having the central relationship being a father-and-progeny dynamic similar to The Royal Tenenbaums. But what makes it interesting is that within these similarities, there remain subtle differences between them.
While the film’s plot is noticeably more convoluted than Anderson’s other movies, it changes some elements around. Instead of a colorful palette, The Phoenician Scheme is given a drab, gray color scheme. Even when they arrive in the desert or jungle environments of Phoenicia, the greens or light oranges look faded. Music supervisor Randall Poster implores the dramatic score of Stravinsky, a harsher tone in comparison to the more melancholic music choices in other films. The whimsical nature of Anderson is diluted here, a notion stated by the first gag being someone split in half by a bomb. His tone is now more violent and sullen, a worldview shared by Korda, a tycoon so cold he offers complementary hand grenades to associates. The only ambiguity left is the possibility of redemption, something that Korda himself tries to find, both within his spirit and for his empire.
That theme becomes what takes the film to newer directions, even when Anderson falls back to his old tricks. He still engages with questionable depictions of foreign lands, as seen with his showcases of Isle of Dogs’ Japan and The Darjeeling Limited’s India. He still brings out some immorality within his characters, like having his lead be nonchalant about his scheme’s use of slave labor. But in having that be set in a dour universe run by rampant corporations and sociopathic morals (as Korda recounts his father’s advice, the most important aspect to any relationship with a person is who licks who), Anderson has the question of absolution be more interesting in applying it to such a sad reality. To see if moments of genuinity can triumph over strategy and planning, or if someone could truly let go of their wealth to achieve an act of good. In this case, The Phoenician Scheme is a Capra-esque, anti-capitalist fable.
It marks itself as a new variation of Anderson’s style, one that doesn’t go all out in complicating the structure or visuals of his movies, rather in changing the tone and writing. As another attempt at out-Wes-Andersoning himself, The Phoenician Scheme is an outside-of-the-box approach. The style and humor uphold his sameness, but there is also much more than meets the eye.