The Phoenician Scheme
Sylvia Ridely - The Phoenician Scheme is Wes Anderson’s most recent film, and from the first frame, it captures you with its precision, eccentricity, and playful wit. On the surface, it’s goofy, colorful, and packed with physical comedy, but underneath that pastel surface, Anderson is on deeper ground: this is a story about mortality, legacy, redemption, faith, and the mysterious bonds of family.
Benicio del Toro delivers a clever performance as Zsa-Zsa Korda, a wealthy industrialist, art collector, and part-time arms dealer who survives his sixth plane crash in the film’s hilarious opening. Someone has clearly been trying to kill him, but Zsa-Zsa marches forward with theatrical confidence, repeating the phrase, “Me myself I feel very safe.” Yet every time death brushes past him, the film pauses for a surreal twist: black-and-white celestial interludes in which Zsa-Zsa appears to be on trial in heaven. These sequences are absurd, poetic, and strangely touching—they peel away his bravado and confront him with the limits of his power and the thoughts of death and punishment.
Realizing his life (and empire) may not be as secure as he pretends, Zsa-Zsa decides to name an heir. He has nine sons—many adopted “just in case one of the available orphans turns out to be the next Einstein”—yet he chooses someone entirely unexpected: his daughter Liesl, a novice nun.
Liesl arrives with nothing but a small suitcase and a rosary wrapped in her fingers. From her quiet entrance onward, she becomes the center of the film’s moral and emotional gravity. Zsa-Zsa invites her on a globetrotting business journey, meant to initiate her into the ruthless world of power deals and hidden agendas. But very quickly, it becomes clear that the teaching is moving in the opposite direction. It is Zsa-Zsa who is being tutored—by a daughter who refuses to be dazzled by wealth or intimidated by force. The scenes in which he is so easily disarmed by her firmness are utterly comical.
Liesl holds her ground with a calm, disarming honesty. Where he manipulates, she tells the truth. Where he boasts, she listens. Where he grasps for control, she remains surrendered to a deeper rhythm. Even in moments of danger or disappointment, she doesn’t abandon him. Instead, she stays close—not with sentimentality, but with a steady faithfulness that carries real authority.
The dialogue is sharp, sincere, disarming, and unexpectedly funny throughout the movie. One of the most touching exchanges takes place in a moment of fear:
Zsa-Zsa: “If it turns out you’re not my daughter, can I adopt you? With your permission.”
Liesl: “Yes.”
Zsa-Zsa: “In that case, whatever happens, we’ll be fine.”
These little moments of vulnerability crack Zsa-Zsa open. He begins the film as a man of intellect, surrounded by rare books, obscure tutors, and curated artifacts—but lacking even a single real relationship. Liesl quietly reveals what he has been missing: not religion in the abstract, but an experience of love and forgiveness, a place of belonging.
A powerful visual thread runs through the story: Liesl’s rosary. She holds it from her first scene to her last, her fingers passing over the beads in moments of silence or tension. The rosary doesn’t appear as a prop of piety—it’s the film’s heartbeat, a rhythm of trust running beneath the world’s chaos. When violence erupts or deals collapse, the camera often returns to her hands.
Anderson surrounds this father-daughter story with his usual ensemble of unforgettable characters—eccentric royals, shady negotiators, cynical bodyguards, and even a befuddled Norwegian tutor who becomes part comic relief, part conscience. But the heart of the movie never wavers: it belongs to Liesl and Zsa-Zsa. It’s her unfailing presence—not argument or ideology—that slowly draws him toward something like redemption.
Without giving away too much, the film builds toward a transformation that is not loud or triumphant, but humble. It doesn’t end with fireworks. It ends with something stronger: a fuller life, a quiet table, a shared meal, and the experience of love.
Wes Anderson has made many beautiful films, but to me, this one carries a rare tenderness: the belief that no one is too far gone to change—and that sometimes, grace arrives slowly, one bead at a time.