In ‘The Phoenician Scheme,’ Wes Anderson encounters God

The Phoenician Scheme

Directed by Wes Anderson (Focus Features, 2025)

Wes Anderson movies are two-hour living art installations. The director of that masterpiece of familial eccentricity, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) uses his films as a canvas for wry, unconventional stories. And his latest, The Phoenician Scheme, is no different.

The story centers on wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda, who dodges assassination attempts amid his devious efforts to bankroll a business scheme. Also mixed in the plot is Zsa-zsa’s secondary scheme to make his only daughter, Liesl—a Catholic novice whom he barely knows—the heir to his fortune. As any Anderson-ophile knows, part of the brilliance of this auteur’s films is the cast. He finds deft uses for actors, many repeated from movie to movie. Pretty much across the board, the Phoenician leads are just great. Benicio del Toro (who appears in 2021’s The French Dispatch) plays Zsa-zsa with machismo and rough elegance. As Zsa-zsa’s daughter, newcomer Mia Threapleton more than holds her own. Clad in a mid-length nun’s habit, Threapleton (the daughter of actress Kate Winslet) is often shown wearing bright green tights and smoking a pipe. Her acerbic portrayal of this principled-but-pliable nun-to-be is delightful.

The supporting actors also thread the needle on this plot: Bill Murray (as God—with Albert Einstein hair—in one of Zsa-zsa’s out-of-body experiences), Jeffrey Wright (as one of Zsa-zsa’s investors who gives Zsa-zsa a blood transfusion after a bungled assassination attempt), and Benedict Cumberbatch as Zsa-zsa’s estranged half-brother Uncle Nubar.

As is customary in Anderson’s films, viewers surrender to the narrative, not knowing (and maybe not caring) where it’s going, because the ride is as important as the destination. In that way, The Phoenician Scheme fulfills its mission: a quirky but sumptuous journey that ends in Anderson-ian fashion, the loose ends tied tightly and brightly.