‘The Phoenician Scheme’ review: Benicio del Toro grounds the latest Wes Anderson whimsy

In the entry on Wes Anderson in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (2004), British critic David Thomson said about the American filmmaker: “Watch this space. What does that mean? That he might be something someday.”

This brutal, terse dismissal came after such well-regarded films as The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). The relentless whimsy, the meticulously designed and colour-coded sets that resemble dollhouses or model building kits, the grown-ups who behave like brilliant but emotionally stunted children, the gnomic humour – Anderson annoys some viewers but also has a loyal fan base.

His latest film is equally divisive.

The Phoenician Scheme is something of a return to form after the follies The French Dispatch (2021) and Asteroid City (2023). The new film isn’t at the level of Anderson’s superb The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), but at least it’s grounded in something resembling the present.

In the 1950s, the industrialist Anatole Korda (Benicio del Toro) decides to pass on his fortune to his daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who is training to be a nun. Liesl does not cast aside her habit but nevertheless starts following her father as he tries to fund his ambitious Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme.

The project claims to bring immense wealth to an underexploited region. Like the buccaneers before him...

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