Wes Anderson may be one of the most distinctive auteurs working in cinema today, inspiring as much adulation as eye rolls, as well as a few TikTok trends. If you love Anderson’s films, then you likely really love them. Conversely, his haters are given fuel with each new film and that’s no different with the director’s latest, The Phoenician Scheme, which just debuted in Compeтιтion at the Cannes Film Festival. After delivering one of his most poignant projects yet with Asteroid City, Anderson once again zigs when you’d expect him to zag, depicting a father desperate to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter against the backdrop of a mid-century conspiracy.

In some ways, The Phoenician Scheme feels like a major departure for the director – it’s Anderson’s most violent film yet, physically and ideologically. It’s also still very much a Wes Anderson film, one that utilizes a sprawling cast of characters, visual gags galore, and a story about the torture of family to once again indulge in his peculiar sensibilities. Ultimately, though, despite The Phoenician Scheme being accessible enough, it still feels like one of Anderson’s weaker efforts after Asteroid City and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.

Mia Threapleton Is A Revelation In The Phoenician Scheme

Benicio del Toro Stars As Her Tycoon Father

Perhaps the best thing to come out of The Phoenician Scheme is Mia Threapleton. She stars as the daughter of Benicio del Toro’s Zsa-zsa Korda, a businessman constantly under threat of ᴀssᴀssination. Threapleton’s Liesl has not seen her father in years and carries a burning resentment towards the man as she’s come to believe he murdered her mother. She’s on the cusp of nun-hood when Korda calls her home to reveal that he has decided to make her his sole heir, partially as an effort to bring her closer to him and also as a way to complicate his already perilous business matters.

In one of the film’s earliest and best scenes, Threapleton and del Toro bounce off each other with an energy emblematic of the best scenes in Anderson’s films. Their chemistry tries to hold the film together as its unwieldy plot involving a geopolitical business crisis takes them on a journey through various exotic locales, with curious professor Bjorn (Micheal Cera, born to work with Anderson) in tow. There’s danger at every turn in The Phoenician Scheme, giving Anderson one of the rare opportunities to work with suspense and tension in ways he doesn’t often.

Unfortunately, that tension is undermined by its overly complicated plot and The Phoenician Scheme‘s handling of the emotional undercurrent of the film. At its heart, the film is about a father and daughter coming together in the worst of circumstances, forced to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Perhaps it’s Anderson’s dry wit that undermines this here. In the past, his stories about family worked because of that humor, but in The Phoenician Scheme, the director seems torn between the larger plot and the smaller nuances of the relationship he’s depicting.

It doesn’t help that The Phoenician Scheme‘s overarching story involving Zsa-zsa’s various business ventures is also lost in the mix of movement and character. Many of the classic Anderson hallmarks are here – the attention to detail, big-name actors making brief but memorable appearances, the sans serif font – and he’s also having the most fun he’s seemingly had in quite some time. Some of The Phoenician Scheme‘s wildest moments are as zany as the director has ever been.

But whereas much of his previous work has a solid core that everything else has formed around, it feels less cohesive more than ever before. No one can say Anderson doesn’t have a vision, but in holding so steadfast to that vision, it often feels like Anderson boxes himself in, stunting his own growth rather than fostering it. For all The Phoenician Scheme‘s eccentric thrills, sardonic performances, and globe-trotting adventure, the film still feels limited in the grand scheme of things.

The Phoenician Scheme premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It releases in theaters on May 30.