In partnership with Universal Pictures UK
Wes Anderson isn’t just a director; he’s a genre in his own right. In The Phoenician Scheme, his dazzling new globe-trotting adventure set in the 1950s, Anderson conjures a delicious new spin on one of his favourite narrative themes: the family.
The great Benicio del Toro, who made his Anderson debut in 2021’s The French Dispatch, plays savvy businessman and master negotiator Zsa-zsa Korda. He’s so ruthless and inscrutable that international bureaucrats and rivals want to bring him down. He’s not afraid of a challenge either. On top of reconnecting with his estranged daughter, unflappable trainee nun Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton), Korda is also trying to finesse the deal of a lifetime.
This is the film’s titular scheme: a massively ambitious plan to link up the mysterious region of Phoenicia (a fictionalised reference to the ancient civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean). Building the necessary infrastructure requires a shedload of cash, so Korda takes Liesl and his eccentric administrative assistant Bjorn (Michael Cera) on a multi-country trek to secure investment. None of the tycoons he needs to woo are a pushover.
It’s a wild and stylish ride that Anderson aficionados won’t want to miss. Here’s everything you need to know before it glides into UK cinemas on May 23.
It features plenty of familiar faces
The Texan director is so associated with certain actors that it’s not misleading to talk about a “Wes Anderson repertory company”. Scarlett Johansson portrays Korda’s rich but tricky Cousin Hilda; Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks play the enigmatic San Francisco businessman Reagan and Leland; and Jeffrey Wright appears as a tack-sharp shipping magnate called Marty. Look out for Richard Ayoade as a surprisingly breezy freedom fighter as well.
Alongside some stellar new recruits
The film’s female lead is an Anderson newbie: British rising star Mia Threapleton, who previously appeared in the award-winning TV drama I Am Ruth. According to casting director Douglas Aibel, Anderson was attracted to Threapleton’s “combination of stoicism and buoyancy”. She gives a brilliant breakthrough performance as Sister Liesl, Korda’s devoutly religious daughter, who’s somewhat ambivalent about the fortune she’s due to inherit.
Michael Cera also makes his Wes debut as Bjorn Lund, a trusted employee of Korda who can’t hold his liquor – or can he? Other Anderson first-timers include British acting greats Riz Ahmed and Benedict Cumberbatch (who appeared in Netflix’s truncated The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar but here makes his Wes feature debut). The former oozes class as dashing Prince Farouk Of Lower Western Independent Phoenicia, while the latter gets menacing as Korda’s dastardly half-brother Uncle Numar.
Alexandre Desplat is back on scoring duties
Since making his Anderson debut on 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, the French composer has become a cherished member of the director’s inner circle. In fact, The Phoenician Scheme is his seventh credit on an Anderson film, which puts him level with actors Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman.
Desplat won the first of his two Oscars for his exquisite work on Anderson’s 2015 masterpiece The Grand Budapest Hotel and he’s on equally fine form here. As ever, his musical contributions are elegant, inventive and peppered with instrumental accents that reference the region where a scene is taking place. You’ll definitely be streaming the soundtrack after you watch this film.
But a new cinematographer is making his mark
Anderson has teamed with revered French cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, a six-time Oscar nominee who’s previously worked with auteurs like Tim Burton and the Coen Brothers, for The Phoenician Scheme. The pair previously worked together on Christmas-themed comedy short Come Together: A Fashion Story In Motion but this is their first full-length project.
Explaining his decision to hire Delbonnel for The Phoenician Scheme, Anderson says in his production notes: “It was of interest to have a European director of photography. There is something darker that Bruno brought to the lighting of the film that was right for the story – not darkness in terms of luminosity, but a darkness in personality.”
It’s Anderson’s most pulse-raising film
The Phoenician Scheme features more physical threat than we’ve come to expect from Anderson. There are frequent fisticuffs, several plane crashes, and the nerve-shredding sight of a bullet being removed from a main character’s chest.
The Phoenician Scheme is top-tier Anderson
Everything that you know and love about Wes Anderson films is present and correct. His dazzlingly intricate production design is also on display – the director even borrowed an actual Renoir from the Nahmad Collection in Giverny and an actual Magritte from the Pietzsch Collection in Berlin to put in Korda’s grand house. And yet The Phoenician Scheme is unlike anything Anderson has ever released. It feels fresh, exciting and modern. Make sure you see it on the biggest screen possible.
There’s a lot of heart in there
Like so many Anderson films, The Phoenician Scheme is also quietly touching: del Toro is magnificent as a business titan trying to secure his legacy and do right by his family. You’ll leave the cinema wanting to watch it again so you can savour every detail of Anderson’s masterful filmmaking.
‘The Phoenician Scheme’ is in cinemas from May 23