The Phoenician Scheme

More charitably, The Phoenician Scheme is a palate cleanser – a lovely lark, a spirits lifter.

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.

A beautiful mixed bag, let’s say, all told.

I was thoroughly entertained and left a bit cold.

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.

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.


“The Phoenician Scheme” is a mix of genres - adventure, espionage and family melodrama - assembled with surprising maturity. [Full Review in Spanish]

The Phoenician Scheme is a welcome mental escape to a fantasy land far removed from today’s messy headlines.

More decidedly and broadly comic, while retaining his insistence upon design perfection in the costuming and production details, bolstered by a great lead performance by Benicio Del Toro and a splendid introduction to Mia Threapleton.

The sweet, sincere story of The Phoenician Scheme centers on the thawing relationship between a distant but freshly conciliatory father and his reluctant adult child. The plot, however, is pure globe-trotting zaniness.