Nerdly » ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Blu-ray Review

03rd Sep2025

‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Blu-ray Review

by Alex Ginnelly

Stars: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston | Written by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola | Directed by Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson made his directorial debut in 1996 with Bottle Rocket. Now, almost 30 years later, he’s released his 12th feature film (13th if you count the 2024 straight-to-streaming The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More, a collection of Roald Dahl short stories). Anderson emerged from the 1990s wave of remarkable American directors, most famously Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson. In the time Wes Anderson has been making movies, he’s been more prolific than his two contemporaries. PTA has released nine feature films in the same period, and Tarantino nine over a slightly longer stretch (his debut arriving in 1992). The result of working so consistently has been a brilliant filmography over the last three decades, in which the unique director has still never let his genius slip.

For the three decades Anderson has been making movies, there have always been those who reduce his films to the exterior, claiming he’s simply been making the same movies over and over again, all style but no substance. And for all the time I’ve been watching Anderson’s movies, I couldn’t disagree more. For me, it’s always been about the emotional weight of every film, and though the style of his films always feels like another world, far from our own, the emotions feel more real and human than perhaps any other filmmaker. Yet, he’s so often criticised for being unemotional. In truth, Wes Anderson’s films aren’t unemotional; they’re just subtle and restrained in how they show emotion. But because modern audiences are so accustomed to emotions being performed loudly and obviously – big crying, big shouting – we rarely see the restrained. Over time, this has caused audiences to misread Anderson’s more stylised, deadpan approach as “emotionless.”

The endless conversation around this, and Anderson’s films as a whole, is brought up again in his latest work, The Phoenician Scheme. The style is once again there: slick, stylised, with the precision and symmetry you’d expect to see. With a rhyme that’s not quite reality, one consistent throughout his work. But again, it’s the emotional weight of the film that proves the strongest point. Telling the story of wealthy businessman Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro), who appoints his only daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise, they soon become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists and determined assassins, all wrapped in the style you’d expect from an Anderson film. The entire plot has a sense of comedy hanging over it, helped by the world Anderson builds. Perhaps another one of his greatest tools is his world-building, and how quickly he can establish the world’s rules, themes, and tones. Within the first few minutes, you’re nicely settled in and ready to be taken on whatever journey Anderson is waiting to tell, along with his longtime writing collaborator Roman Coppola.

The other key to any Anderson film is the star-studded cast he brings along for the ride. Here there are all the usual faces you’d come to expect: Bill Murray and Willem Dafoe make appearances, as do stars of his last few films: Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, and Bryan Cranston. The two standouts of this film, however, are both new to the world of Wes Anderson. Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera both shine next to Benicio Del Toro. It’s Threapleton and Del Toro who drive the film’s emotional core, but Cera who gets some of the most fun. Cera slots into the style of Wes Anderson so perfectly, it’s a surprise it’s taken this long to get him into one of these films, but now I can’t imagine Anderson will make another film without him. As always, the entire cast is outstanding and makes the world come to life in every frame.

The Phoenician Scheme’s real beauty is within its characters and their emotional connections to one another. The film showcases grand and subtle themes that show, in the end, power is hollow, and connection is everything. That legacies aren’t built in skyscrapers or infrastructure projects, they’re built in how we care for each other, how we fail each other, and whether we try again. There are beautiful moments of forgiveness and learning, surrounded by comedy and some great action, that show how brilliant Anderson is. It will no doubt have Anderson fans loving every scene, and I doubt this will be the film to change anyone’s opinion of Anderson who doesn’t already love his work. In the end, the daughter–father core gives the film real, undeniable soul. Whether or not the rest of the film hits for everyone, that relationship is tender, sad, unresolved, and deeply human.