The Phoenician Scheme

We’re introduced to the industrialist as he’s deciding whether a cornfield or soybean field will be a “more survivable crash site” for his private plane, which has been sabotaged as part of the latest attempt on his life. Being used to this sort of thing, he seems quite sanguine about it all. Zsa-zsa is “in the habit of surviving,” as he puts it, and could hardly be more of a Wes Anderson protagonist if he tried: an international ne’er-do-well with no country but 10 children (nine boys and one girl who’s about to become a nun) and unscrupulous business interests, he’s played to perfection by Benicio del Toro. Like Royal before him, he’s also an absentee patriarch whose roguish charms win us over long before they do his family.

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Del Toro is a fairly new addition to the Anderson-verse, having first joined it in 2021’s The French Dispatch; compared to Bill Murray, who’s marking his 11th collaboration with the filmmaker here, he’s practically a fawn. He’s also uniquely suited to embody and express Anderson’s unique sensibility: dashing in a rapscallion sort of way, the Oscar winner always gives the impression of having more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Deadpan but strangely charismatic, he personifies “I don’t care what anyone says about you, you’re all right by me.”

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Playing his novitiate daughter Liesl, who reluctantly goes along with Zsa-zsa’s plan to make her his sole heir on what he describes as a trial basis, is debuting leading lady Mia Threapleton. Talent runs in her family — she’s Kate Winslet’s daughter, after all — but she makes a strong first impression in her own right, giving Liesl the requisite blend of steeliness and quiet dignity. Michael Cera completes the main trio as Bjørn, a Norwegian entomologist pulling double duty as Zsa-zsa’s bug tutor and administrative assistant. If his accent seems a bit much even for a movie like this, rest assured there’s a reason for it.

The scheme they enact together is charmingly convoluted, with information pertaining to each constituent part contained in six shoeboxes that also serve as chapter breaks. It centers around the eponymous (and fictional) country, where Zsa-zsa intends to build a massive infrastructure project. En route to what’s officially known as Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia, he has to convince a group of potential backers to help foot the bill, including an affable prince (Riz Ahmed), a fez-wearing nightclub owner (Mathieu Amalric), and a wealthy second cousin (Scarlett Johansson) whom he intends to marry for bottom-line reasons. All of this is further complicated by a band of freedom fighters led by the idealistic Sergio (Richard Ayoade) who keep showing up at inopportune moments, to say nothing of Zsa-zsa’s latest and most unexpected development: a conscience.

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He didn’t survive his most recent assassination attempt entirely unscathed, you see. The near-death experience resulted in a brief visit to a black-and-white afterlife where he sees his first wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a gatekeeper (Willem Dafoe), a prophet (F. Murray Abraham), and God himself (Bill Murray), all of whom are clearly sitting in judgement — and awaiting his eventual return. He sees them again throughout the film, with each vision prompting him to self-reflect more than the last. All three of his wives are dead — either by his own hand or at his orders, per the persistent rumors about him — and his financial dealings aren’t exactly above board. Any concerns about where he’s going once this is over are well founded.

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That’s a familiar arc, but it’s still rendered with more pathos by Anderson than it has been by most of his predecessors. You can complain about all his movies being too alike if you’re so inclined, but to do so misses a more important point: that anyone making movies like this is cause for celebration. Having an instantly recognizable aesthetic is a feature, not a bug, and is more than you can say for all but a small handful of his peers. Every shot is like a diorama, with all the elaborate production design, distinct colors, and analog doodads we’ve come to expect from a Wes Anderson movie. This might be wearying for some, but for me it always feels like returning to the ornate house of an eccentric uncle who’s usually out of the country on mysterious adventures.

Anyone making movies like this is cause for celebration.

Which isn’t to say that The Phoenician Scheme breaks new ground. Most of its elements would show up on your average Wes Anderson bingo card (which, if it doesn’t already exist, probably should), and not all of them are as effective as they’ve been in the past. None of the four movies he’s made since The Grand Budapest Hotel — a list that also includes Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, and Asteroid City — have been quite as, well, grand, a trend The Phoenician Scheme continues. But it isn’t a mere exercise in style, a claim that Anderson seems well aware of at this point.

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He hints at this when Bjørn, whose frippery is excessive even for an Anderson character, is asked a pointed question by Liesl: “Is this an act?” One can imagine that the filmmaker has been asked the same question countless times. Is it really all affectation and artifice, his detractors have wondered, or is there a beating heart beneath it all? Your mileage may vary, but I’ll answer that question by quoting The Phoenician Scheme’s most apropos line: “I suppose I’m moved by this absurd performance.”