’The Phoenician Scheme’ review: Benicio del Toro and Wes Anderson unite for espionage comedy-drama

Dir: Wes Anderson. US/Germany. 2025. 100mins 

Wes Anderson’s films often feature enterprising, self-reliant men determined to bend the world to their will — only to learn the world has other ideas. Such is the case with The Phoenician Scheme, in which Benicio del Toro plays a ruthless European industrialist foolheartedly launching his boldest-ever business gambit while reuniting with his estranged daughter, a nun he has determined will be his sole heir. This comedy-thriller finds its antihero confronting his own moral failings and his shortcomings as a father, all set against a reliably stunning visual backdrop and no shortage of clever touches. But what’s lacking this time is a grander idea — either narratively or thematically — that would help this Scheme really soar.

Even the exotic, fantastical lands and genre cross-pollination merely echo past strengths

The fourth Anderson film to screen in Competition at Cannes, The Phoenician Scheme opens in the US and UK on May 30, bolstered by a typically starry cast, including Michael Cera and (in much smaller roles) Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson. The director’s ardent fans will be first in line, with grosses probably comparable to 2021’s The French Dispatch ($46 million worldwide) and 2023’s Asteroid City ($54 million).

In 1950, Zsa-zsa Korda (del Toro) has just survived yet another assassination attempt, barely getting out alive after his private plane is shot down. So many want him dead: business rivals, governments across the globe, maybe even his three ex-wives. Nonetheless, this wealthy, unscrupulous capitalist plans to move forward with The Korda Land And Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme, an ambitious venture which aims to exploit the untapped commercial resources of the fictional land of Phoenicia. But Korda recognises he cannot outrun those plotting to kill him and contacts his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a 20 year-old nun who wants nothing to do with him, to inform her that she will inherit his empire upon his demise.

Fractured families often factor into Anderson’s work, and early on The Phoenician Scheme establishes the tension between Korda and Liesl, who believes that he murdered her mother. Her suspicion is incorrect, but del Toro plays this robber baron as the sort of intimidating individual who has done terrible things to amass his fortune. Reluctantly, she agrees to join Korda and his personal assistant Bjorn (Cera), as they visit his different business partners to convince them to make up the financial shortfall threatening the project and, consequently, Korda’s reputation. Along the way, father and daughter will grow closer, especially once Liesl becomes fixated on getting revenge on the man Korda says killed her mother, Korda’s half-brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch).

Anderson’s screenplay, based on a story he wrote with Roman Coppola, follows Korda as he struggles to sweet-talk his investors into ponying up more money while hoping to unmask those trying to assassinate him. But although The Phoenician Scheme is transporting — an effect amplified by Alexandre Desplat’s lilting orchestral score, supplemented by selections from Stravinsky and Beethoven — the narrative proves to be fussy rather than delightful. Adam Stockhausen’s gorgeous production design turns every ballroom, airplane and imagined afterlife into its own magical universe, but those lavish details cannot fully distract from the familiarity of Anderson’s bittersweet saga of a proud, flawed man learning to embrace his softer side thanks to Liesl’s arrival in his life.

Some of The Phoenician Scheme’s story beats and punchlines repeat well-trod Anderson-isms; even the exotic, fantastical lands and genre cross-pollination merely echo past strengths.

Del Toro makes for an enigmatic Korda, one of Europe’s richest men who will discover the limits of his power. The actor’s droll performance amuses, but the character never really surprises or taps into something deeper about the immoral capitalists who have plundered the globe for their own profit. Del Toro shares a wry, prickly rapport with Threapleton, but Liesl feels similarly underdeveloped. And The Phoenician Scheme’s wealth of stellar supporting players only get scant screen time, with few managing to shine. That said, Cera, a newcomer to Anderson’s acting stable, acquits himself nicely as Korda’s ineffectual Norwegian helpmate who begins to pine for this aloof nun. He plugs into the filmmaker’s deadpan style, but he can’t fully enliven it.