Wes Anderson has his quirky style, and with this effort he effectively makes one by the numbers. Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) is a wealthy businessman who has many enemies, some friends and a nun for a daughter. Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton) is set to inherit everything, but her uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch) poses as a potential enemy. The pair escape with Oslo professor Bjørn Lund (Michael Cera), where they meet many madcap characters including a communist revolutionary (Richard Ayaode), a madcap basketball player (Bryan Cranston) and of all things, a noble prince (Riz Ahmed).
Anderson has created a style that will appease devoted fans, but only the die-hard fans will see The Phoenician Scheme as anything more than a wet Sunday viewing. It has the trademark one-liners (“You have a Belgian chef, and I have a French one,”) and the wide shots delicately laid out to resemble postcards. But unlike The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) or The Darjeeling Limited (2007), the 2025 equivalent lacks any substance to bolster the zingers and stylised angles.
Zsa-zsa Korda remains virtually unchanged as a person from beginning to end.Uncle Nubar looks ridiculous behind that overgrown beard, robbing Cumberbatch of his power as a performer. And Tom Hanks looks so bored in his cameo, he must have been counting down the hours before he could go home. Hanks won’t be the last person to indulge such a fantasy. Threapleton looks like the only one putting her backbone into the character, giving a melancholic tragedy to the role of daughter turned sister.
It’s clear early on that her mother died in childhood; “They say you killed her,” Liesl informs her father. In typically dry Anderson fashion, Zsa-zsa seems more concerned with his cigar than the revelation that has arisen. Pointlessly,there are black and white segments which feature a depiction of God (Bill Murray) and some angels dictating the family’s fate. These sections prove to give exposition the viewer already knows, only padding to the runtime. More than that, these shifts in colour and tone feel pretentious, because they are used solely in the name of style.
As an espionage thriller, The Phoenician Scheme makes use of weaponry, and in a genuinely funny running gag Zsa-zsa hands out hand grenades like a hostess presenting hors d’oeuvres at a dinner party. One character is secretly working for the United States government, an organisation listening to Zsa-zsa’s conversations from the start of the feature. But it’s still a far cry from effective capers such as Licence to Kill (John Glen,1989), an espionage vehicle driven by grit, nerve and swagger.
Truthfully, the lack of heart punctures this movie. Zsa-zsa and Liesl have a stormy relationship; they have not seen one another in six years when he addresses her. Liesl agrees to be his daughter “for a trial period”, but the creative team never deliver on the potential. Words are said, statements are repeated, but nothing is built on. Worse, the daughter seems unfazed by the fact that her father may well have had something to do with her mother’s killing, and a thoughtful scene on mortality is swiftly binned for yet another funny line.
Anderson fans can be assured of some laughs. Ayaode steals every scene he’s in as a Che Guevara lookalike.”I’m no businessman”. he chuckles, surrounded by guerrilla fighters with machine guns. Cranston is a hoot as the gnarly American named Reagan, a dexterous athlete capable of performing feats of basketball. Anderson’s 13th film won’t disappoint hardcore fans too badly, as it carries many of the artist’s trappings and trimmings, but it doesn’t stand up with his earlier films. And it won’t win any new fans.
Phoenician Scheme premiered in Official Competition of the 78th Festival de Cannes, when this piece was originally written. On Amazon Prime and Sky on Monday, July 14th.
