Wes Anderson is often accused of prioritizing his exceptionally composed images and uniquely twee dialogue over narrative and emotion. His two most recent features, The French Dispatch (2021) and Asteroid City (2023), seemed to directly respond to this by using framing devices to consider how their main stories were told. In The French Dispatch , things felt more academic but interesting, and in Asteroid City , the reflexivity became the emotional heart of the film.

The Phoenician Scheme gives all that up, throwing itself headfirst into the criticisms of Anderson’s work to the film’s detriment. A barrage of information is delivered in perfectly clear and concise language, accompanied by close-ups of the relevant players and objects in the first ten minutes—but it’s almost impos

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