Festivals - Cannes 2025 : Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme Unveils a Stylish and Darkly Humorous Espionage Tale to Thunderous Applause and Star-Studded Celebration

By Mulder, Cannes, Palais des Festivals et des Congrès de Cannes, 18 may 0002 to 18 may 2025

Wes Anderson’s latest cinematic eccentricity, The Phoenician Scheme, made its grand entrance into the world at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, premiering to a packed house at the iconic Grand Théâtre Lumière on May 18, 2025. As if by some clockwork ritual, Cannes once again became Wes Anderson’s playground, marking his triumphant return to the Croisette following the warmly received Asteroid City in 2023 and The French Dispatch in 2021. Yet, this year felt particularly electrified—perhaps due to the hauntingly current themes embedded in this espionage-laced black comedy, or maybe it was the sheer magnetism of its all-star ensemble cast that includes Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, and a veritable parade of Wes Anderson regulars. The film received a rousing 7½-minute standing ovation, and if that seems par for the Cannes course, one need only have seen the teary-eyed Threapleton to know it wasn’t just another polite tradition—it hit home.

What stood out immediately on the red carpet was the gravitational pull of its cast. Del Toro, Cera, Cumberbatch, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jeffrey Wright, and even Bill Murray radiated charisma as they greeted fans and critics alike. There was a poetic symmetry in seeing Roman Coppola and composer Alexandre Desplat—Wes Anderson’s longtime conspirators—beside this new generation of collaborators like Mia Threapleton. Threapleton, daughter of Kate Winslet and a relative newcomer, appeared as moved by the event as any debutante stepping into a legacy of artistry and ambition. The presence of film legends and jury members like Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong only amplified the moment. This was more than a film premiere; it was a coronation of Wes Anderson’s continued relevance in global cinema, as much a part of the Cannes identity now as the Palais des Festivals itself.

The Phoenician Scheme is quintessential Wes Anderson, yet not in a way that feels recycled. Set in a fictionalized 1950s Europe, the film revolves around Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro), a wildly enigmatic tycoon who’s survived more assassination attempts than most fictional spies—six plane crashes alone, to be exact. His empire, built on aviation and armaments, is a dangerous web that ensnares politicians, tycoons, and terrorists alike. But in a twist only Wes Anderson would dare to execute with such precision, Korda selects as his heir none other than his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a devout nun-in-training. Cue the collision of faith and finance, purity and power. This setup forms the engine of a narrative that is both laugh-out-loud funny and uncomfortably prescient. In a time when wealth and warfare remain inseparable, Wes Anderson peels back the absurdity and melancholy beneath the surface of boardrooms and monasteries alike.

Wes Anderson’s script—co-written with Roman Coppola—unfolds like a Rube Goldberg machine of dry wit, visual symmetry, and narrative convolution. Liesl, reluctantly thrown into a world she once renounced, joins her father and his personal tutor Bjorn (played by a wonderfully deadpan Michael Cera) on a whirlwind journey through "Greater Independent Phoenicia" in an attempt to seal a financially and politically precarious infrastructure deal. At the same time, Liesl investigates the mysterious death of her mother—an unresolved trauma that frames the film’s darker undercurrents. The assassination attempts, the jet-set pacing, the whispered betrayals: all are tempered by Wes Anderson’s unmistakable visual signature. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, collaborating with Wes Anderson for the first time, adds a fresher, moodier texture to the pastel precision audiences have come to expect, evoking noir flourishes and European art cinema with every frame.

The film’s roots, as it turns out, stretch back long before the cameras rolled. During promotion for Asteroid City in 2023, Wes Anderson teased that the script had already been completed and was a “three-hander” adventure centered on a father-daughter dynamic—a rarity in his usual carousel of eccentric family units. The filming at Babelsberg Studios in Germany marked a new chapter for Wes Anderson’s visual evolution, especially with the decision to use Delbonnel’s eye in place of his usual cinematographer, Robert Yeoman. And it shows. This is a film slightly more grounded in shadows and sharp angles, perhaps a visual metaphor for the murkier moral stakes on display.

The buzz surrounding The Phoenician Scheme didn’t end with the screening. As the credits rolled, the cast and crew rose in sync with a standing ovation that seemed to surprise even Wes Anderson himself. He responded by simply pointing to each of his collaborators on stage, letting their presence speak louder than words—each gesture, each name called out, a testament to the collaborative soul of his filmmaking. According to Deadline, Benicio del Toro carries the film “lock, stock, and barrel,” adapting seamlessly to Wes Anderson’s distinctive rhythm and dry wit. Critics praised the balance struck between its comedy and melancholy, with TheWrap calling it “funny and meaningful,” and suggesting it may be Wes Anderson’s most challenging yet breezy film to date.

The broader implications of The Phoenician Scheme also merit attention. It's a story about legacy in an age of decline, about training the next generation not just in business but in values—however skewed or conflicted those may be. Liesl’s arc from religious novitiate to reluctant power broker mirrors our collective disillusionment with institutions, whether spiritual or capitalist. And while the film doesn’t preach, it does provoke, placing its characters in absurd scenarios that mirror our own global chaos with eerie accuracy.

Ultimately, The Phoenician Scheme feels like Wes Anderson cracking open his familiar toy box and discovering a darker, sharper edge. Yes, the symmetry is there, the pastel palettes, the eccentric dialogue, the immaculate production design—but there’s also a palpable tension beneath it all, a nervous energy that might reflect the anxieties of our current era. It’s not just a return to form—it’s a reinvention within form, and one that finds Wes Anderson at his most mischievous, most melancholic, and perhaps most mature.

As the lights came up on that balmy Cannes night, the cast exited the theater to a frenzy of flashbulbs and applause, but what lingered most wasn’t the spectacle—it was the sensation of having seen a director not merely repeat his greatest hits, but rewire them into something both familiar and entirely new. Wes Anderson has never seemed more at home—or more essential—on the Croisette. With The Phoenician Scheme, he has once again proven that cinema, when in the right hands, can be whimsical, wicked, and wise—all at once

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Synopsis : 
1950. Anatole Zsa-zsa Korda, an enigmatic industrialist and one of Europe's richest men, survives another assassination attempt (his sixth plane crash). His multifaceted business activities, extremely complex and ruthlessly brutal, have made him a target not only for his competitors, but also for governments of all ideological persuasions around the world—and, consequently, for the hitmen they employ. Korda is now engaged in the final phase of a project that is as ambitious as it is crucial to his career: the Korda Project for maritime and land infrastructure in Phoenicia, a vast operation to develop a region that has long been neglected but has immense potential. The personal financial risk is now staggering. The threats to his life are constant. It is at this precise moment that he decides to name and train his successor: Liesl, his twenty-year-old daughter (now a nun), whom he has not seen for several years.

The Phoenician Scheme
Written and directed by Wes Anderson
Story by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Produced by Wes Anderson, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, John Peet
Starring  Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis
Cinematography : Bruno Delbonnel
Edited by Barney Pilling
Music by Alexandre Desplat
Production companies : American Empirical Pictures, Indian Paintbrush
Distributed by Focus Features (United States), Universal Pictures (International)
Release dates : May 18, 2025 (Cannes), May 28, 2025 (France), May 30, 2025 (United States)
Running time : 105 minutes

Photos : @fannyrlphotography