ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — “The Phoenician Scheme” is Wes Anderson iterating on his iconic style in an entirely new genre. Check out our review below.

“THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME” (2025, 102 min., directed by Wes Anderson)

It is a blast to watch a Wes Anderson movie that loves other films just as much as its own diagrammatic world. “The Phoenician Scheme,” the latest from the famously fussy auteur, is a send-up of everything from classic spy thrillers of the 1930s and 40s to the surreal dreamscapes of Alejandro Jodorowsky, all refracted through the mannered symmetry and pastel color palettes of its director’s signature style.

(Courtesy: Focus Features) Wes Anderson’s latest movie stars Benicio del Toro at the head of a massive ensemble cast.

 

There are some who have accused Anderson of becoming too focused on the tightly-controlled dollhouse feel of his features at the expense of their emotion and humanity. I disagree with that reductive idea about as flatly as Anderson characters deliver their dialogue. In his last three films, 2021’s “The French Dispatch,” 2023’s “Asteroid City” and an anthology collection of four 2023 short films, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More,” Anderson expresses everything from artistic ennui to childlike wonder through the veneer of carefully constructed frames.

Anderson’s early work, “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” especially, are no more emotionally raw or complex than “Asteroid City,” but the feelings in them are easier to spot thanks to the unpolished direction of a younger artist. Anderson has forever been interested in the tug-of-war between artistic sincerity and wounded cynicism, always with an undercurrent of deep sadness beneath the quirky set design and ubiquitous Futura font. “The Phoenician Scheme,” which stars Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton as an estranged father and daughter, is just as gently heartbreaking and emotionally curious as “Tenenbaums,” only with a tighter command of the world the characters exist in.

In some ways, it could be argued Anderson’s consistency is his greatest strength. “The Phoenician Scheme” is so pleasurable to watch because of the way Anderson is able to iterate upon his familiar cinematic language in new and interesting ways. In a cinematic age where nostalgia is king and IP reigns supreme, Anderson could be making “Moonrise Kingdom: 10 Years Later” or “Fantastic Mr. Fox 2: Still Fantastic.” Instead, he’s telling original stories with enough familiarity to ease you in and enough strangeness and complexity to be different from what he’s done before.

“The Phoenician Scheme” is not “Wes Anderson is doing the same thing he always does,” it’s “wow, okay, so this is Wes Anderson’s version of a globe-trotting spy movie.” I don’t see how the director can be accurately described as maniacally obsessed with his own vision when his most recent film draws so heavily on the tapestry of genre cinema which preceded it. The opening beats of the movie, which see del Toro’s character crashing a plane before he’s thrown into a black-and-white judicial afterlife, are a clear allusion to the plane crash which begins “A Matter of Life and Death,” Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1946 romantic drama. Show me the corollary between that and “The Darjeeling Limited.”

Enough argument against an anti-Anderson straw man. “The Phoenician Scheme” is a delight on its own accord, even if this is your first Anderson movie.

Michael Cera, left, is the MVP of “The Phoenician Scheme” as Bjørn, a suitor of Mia Threapleton’s Sister Liesl, right.

Del Toro plays Anatole Zsa-Zsa Korda, an arms dealer and charming con artist, who attempts to reconnect with his only daughter, an aspiring nun named Liesl (Threapleton), as he aspires to gain financial backing for his latest scheme from a gallery of displeased investors. The film portends to ask a lot from the audience with its convoluted finance jargon and attempts at class commentary, but if viewed from the vantage of the father-daughter device, “The Phoenician Scheme” becomes a lot clearer. The movie is all about the relationship between Zsa-Zsa and Liesl. Interactions with the other characters, played by an ensemble cast which includes Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Willem Dafoe and Bill Murray, are scenarios for the two to navigate together.

However, in true Anderson fashion, most of those interactions are either hilarious or poignant. My favorite is a basketball match between railroad-owning brothers Hanks and Cranston and Zsa-Zsa and Ahmed, the prince of Phoenicia.

I’ll end with an inarguable piece of proof Anderson is exploring new ground: “The Phoenician Scheme” is the director’s first collaboration with character actor Michael Cera, the king of offbeat hilarity. The pairing is a match made in black-and-white heaven. Cera’s Bjørn is the most instantly iconic Anderson character in years.

Rating: 4/5