The Phoenician Scheme is an adventurous tale that delivers hilariously whimsical action as it journeys across distinct and colourful locations.
If you enjoy Wes Anderson’s movies for their brilliant ability to transport audiences to perfectly crafted environments, each with their own distinct set design, oddball characters and backstories, then you’ll love The Phoenician Scheme.
Credit: Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
The story follows Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro) as he appoints his daughter as the sole heir to his estate. This comes as he embarks on a mission to finalise his greatest investment enterprise, The Phoenician Scheme. As Zsa-Zsa approaching the various colourful characters that make up his investment partners, his crew encounter scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists, and determined assassins.
The film is segmented into various parts that are indicated by on-screen title-cards, as is typical for Anderson. What’s more clever here is that each part is labelled according to the investor Zsa-Zsa must convince to contribute a percentage to fill the gap in the Phoenician scheme. Each segment is bookended by scenes on Zsa-Zsa’s unreliable private jet, which runs into constant problems and crashes twice.
As we make our way to each of these potential investors, some family members, other former business rivals, Anderson is able to leverage his entourage of notable actors making small but impactful appearances
A dual cameo from Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston sees them embody memorable business rivals of Zsa-Zsa. They’re costumed in hilariously out of place American basketball gear, and deliver one of the best scenes of the film. The other characters that Zsa-Zsa appearances include Jeffrey Wright playing an American investor with headquarters on a naval ship, and Scarlett Johansson playing Zsa-Zsa’s Cousin Hilda who must agree to marry him for financial purpose, make up the vast array of characters Zsa-Zsa must convince to join his scheme.
Credit: Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
With each new investor we meet, we’re also transported to a new part of Phoenicia. This works perfectly to deliver the sprawling and often frenetic nature that Anderson gives to Zsa-Zsa’s mission. Locations vary from a heritage underground train station complete with soft warm lighting, to naval ships, and French-inspired jazz bars. Each location has incredibly distinct set design.
It’s a highlight of Anderson’s work that he leans into the anti-naturalistic art-form. He is unconcerned with making things look and feel as though they reflect the real world. Instead, he designs locations that feel delightfully artificial, in the most pleasing sense. They are perfect, and bursting with their own distinct character each time. The joy as the audience is to sit back and let yourself into each new environment and all its wondrous accompaniments.
One of the most stunning locations is set in the Phoenicia desert, with a warm sunwashed landscape that makes assassin’s and foreign terrorists its local enemies. Other scenes are located in retro jazz bars with soft pastel green and yellow walls.
Among all the chaos of jungle crashes and investment madness, the film also featured cutaways to Zsa-Zsa on trial at some imagined version of heaven. An ethereal white and gold environment, perfectly symmetrical and floating on clouds is exactly how you’d imagine Anderson’s heaven would look. These highly metaphorical scenes see Zsa-Zsa undergo various trial by a jury of angels and God himself, played by Bill Murray. As he offers them sacrifices and answers for his actions, the religious elements of the film, heightened by his daughter being a nun are brought to the fore.
The faces that make up the main cast are also some of the strongest in any of Anderson’s work yet. Mia Threapleton is the standout. Her reserved yet capable nun is the perfect counter-point to Zsa-Zsa’s selfish craziness. Richard Ayode also delivers a charming turn as the most polite terrorist ever.
Credit: Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
Michael Cera also notably delivers the most hilarious and charming performance of the film. He works so well in this world because he can instantly move between deathly serious to embarrassingly sincere, which serves Anderson’s whimsical self-deprecating script perfectly.
The Phoenician Scheme offers one of Anderson’s most charming and adventurous stories yet. The grand nature of the investment scheme lends itself perfectly to showcasing a vast array of different characters in unique environments.
