The Phoenician Scheme
critic Reviews
, 77% Certified Fresh Tomatometer Score- A caper made with all the intricacy of a Rube Goldberg machine, The Phoenician Scheme doesn't deviate from Wes Anderson's increasingly ornate style but delivers the formula with mannered delicacy.
- , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreKimberley JonesAustin Chronicle
More charitably, The Phoenician Scheme is a palate cleanser – a lovely lark, a spirits lifter.
Read full article - , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreAnn HornadayWashington Post
At its fleeting best — in its meditation on the transactional and the transcendent — this one feels like it’s reaching for something more than surface charm.
Read full article - , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreMichael PhillipsChicago Tribune
A beautiful mixed bag, let’s say, all told.
Read full article - , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreMax WeissBaltimore Magazine
I was thoroughly entertained and left a bit cold.
Read full article - , Rotten Tomatometer ScoreColeman SpildeSalon.com
The resulting product is just that: a product, with all of the matte pastel appeal of Anderson’s oeuvre, yet little of its memorable charm.
Read full article - , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreJustin ChangThe New Yorker
The result is more digestible, though also less moving, than Anderson’s recent Asteroid City, but it does have a stealth emotional weapon in Threapleton’s Liesl, who exudes the intelligence and self-possession of a young Anna Karina.
Read full article - , Rotten Tomatometer ScoreYasser MedinaCinefilia
Despite the elegant aesthetic, I suspect the narrative treads on average ground and becomes somewhat superficial with its group of eccentric characters led by Benicio del Toro. [Full review in Spanish]
Read full article - , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreNatalia TrzenkoLa Nación (Argentina)
...[The Phoenician Scheme is] a story that once again explores the complicated ties between parents and children, although in such an exaggerated formula that it surpasses the absurd and dangerously approaches the ridiculous. [Full review in Spanish]
Read full article - , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreEric MarchenRogers TV
Del Toro carries himself similarly to how Orson Welles once did: larger-than-life, cutthroat, and cultured. He’s a citizen who belongs nowhere and everywhere.
Read full article - , Fresh Tomatometer ScoreSebastian Zavala KahnCinencuentro
Everything looks great, but it fails to generate much emotional impact, and it also feels a bit tedious, as if Anderson were running out of visual and stylistic resources. [Full review in Spanish].
Read full article