Wes Anderson’s 2025 feature film, The Phoenician Scheme, is a unique amalgamation of deep and philosophical thoughts, particularly about the connection between wealth and family, and the usual caricature that is expected of the masterful director. The plot here is centered around a wealthy and ruthless industrialist named Anatole ‘Zsa-zsa’ Korda, who sets out on an effort to minimize his business losses, all while trying to establish a much-needed bond with his estranged daughter, Liesl. While The Phoenician Scheme is not the most moving or noteworthy of Anderson’s films, it still makes for a thoroughly enjoyable watch, despite ultimately lacking in depth overall.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
The Phoenician Scheme begins in 1950, inside an airplane flying high over the High Balkan Flatlands, carrying the wealthy and influential businessman, Anatole Korda, and his secretary. Despite the initial peace and tranquility, an odd thud sound is quickly followed by a horrific blast, which violently kills the secretary and blows a hole in the side of the plane. This is clearly an attempt on the life of Korda, who is more commonly called by his nickname, ‘Zsa-zsa,’ with many other such attempts having been made previously. Therefore, Zsa-zsa is not too surprised or panicked, and he makes his way to the cockpit, only for the pilot to threaten to report him to the association for having forced him to fly amidst such a situation. Once again, the industrialist does not bother about such threats, and he literally ejects the pilot from the seat, firing him from his service, and then focuses on crash landing the plane on an empty field.
Despite the unbelievable level of danger, Zsa-zsa actually survives the crash and recovers from his injuries in a matter of months. But the realization that there is now a genuine threat to his life also stirs him, and he admits that, on a less lucky day, he will no longer be able to survive such attacks. Therefore, he chooses to name an official heir who will inherit his wealth and also his businesses, and among a long list of ten children, his favorite happens to be the eldest, his daughter, Liesl. There is a massive problem to get over before he appoints Liesl as his heir, though, as the young woman herself has no interest in having such worldly ties. Instead, Liesl wants to focus on her life as a Catholic novice and prepare to take her vows as a nun by the end of the month.
Besides, Liesl has not met her father in over six years, owing to Zsa-zsa’s disregard towards his family and extreme dedication to his work, but he is not shy in making the pitch of inheritance to his daughter at present. Around the very same time, Zsa-zsa’s business empire receives a threat from the global forces who want to curb his financial power, and he has to set off on a globe-trotting journey to meet with his investors and convince them to put in more money. As Liesl, and Zsa-zsa’s new tutor (the man has a habit of learning new things whenever he can throughout the day, and therefore always keeps a tutor) and administrative assistant, Bjorn Lund, also accompany him, the trio go through a life-changing adventure, with each of them having their own intentions.
What exactly is Zsa-zsa’s Phoenician Scheme?
For most of the film’s plot, the Phoenician Scheme hatched by Zsa-zsa Korda remains the pertinent matter, as we follow the characters’ journey to various countries to iron out the problems that have arisen with regard to it. Having succeeded in numerous businesses and trades in his career, Zsa-zsa had recently taken over a project to build infrastructure in the region of Phoenicia, the desert lands of the eastern Mediterranean region, with the sole purpose of earning huge profits. When Liesl confronts him about such matters, Zsa-zsa very openly admits that he has been using slaves on the project, with no direct compensation but some meager stipend that they are receiving from the king of the land. He is also quick to admit that the severe famine that has hit Phoenicia and has been disrupting the lives of the citizens there is also his doing, as he wants to establish a social and political stronghold over the region.
Anderson creates Zsa-Zsa as the epitome of the evil capitalist, who is not only ruthless and inconsiderate in his business practices but is also unabashed and shameless about his nature and intentions. Therefore, there is also a scheme in the international market against the businessman, although the schemers are not concerned about his immoral acts but about their own profits. The scheme against Zsa-zsa is hatched by an international consortium, headed by an American agent codenamed Excalibur. The reason behind the American government’s decision to target Zsa-zsa is also quite simple—the businessman has been amassing tremendous amounts of wealth and causing wars in some regions and bringing peace in some others, all of which are in conflict with America’s political and diplomatic operations.
Thus, in an effort to disrupt Zsa-zsa’s enormous profits and, in turn, his financial stronghold, Excalibur and the consortium hike the prices of the most basic construction materials, like rivets, tremendously. This leads to a very difficult situation for the industrialist, as his recent project of building large-scale infrastructure would massively go over the planned budget because of the hike in the prices of construction materials. There is suddenly a difference between the planned budget and the new expenditure, which Zsa-zsa calls the ‘gap,’ and while this gap was initially a profit for him, now it becomes a matter of headache. Zsa-zsa absolutely refuses to fill in this gap from his own pocket, and he wants to raise it from his investors by making them put in more money.
At present, the shares of the Phoenician Scheme are shared in equal parts, of 25%, among four business partner groups—brothers Leland and Reagan, from Sacramento; a French nightclub owner called Marseille Bob; a syndicate from Newark; and Zsa-zsa’s second cousin, Hilda. The businessman’s course of action is to visit each of these individuals and convince them, or rather, swindle them, into making more investments into the project, without mentioning the rise in the price of construction materials and the gap that has suddenly emerged. He often fails to keep the matter a secret, but such are Zsa-zsa’s skills at getting whatever he wants that he succeeds in acquiring more investments, even by proposing to marry his cousin, Hilda. The Phoenician Scheme really does not get into any more detail about the situation, despite being the most important development in the plot.
How had Liesl’s mother really died?
Another recurring matter in the plot is the death of Liesl’s mother in the past and the young woman’s questions and doubts about the incident, most importantly, her suspicion that her father, Zsa-zsa, must have had something to do with it. There is indeed a rumor about him having murdered each of his three wives, although he completely denies the allegations. Liesl, who had been sent away to a convent by her family at a very young age, effectively abandoned by them, naturally has doubts about her father’s nature and intentions, especially since she has not met him in the last 6 years. Added to this are Zsa-zsa’s extremely ruthless and self-centered ways in business and life, which further convince Liesl that he must have killed her mother for some reason.
But Zsa-zsa eventually reveals a different story, although the film does not ever confirm or deny his claims, leaving the choice of whether to believe him totally upon the audience. He claims that his wife had incidentally gotten involved in a romantic affair with his own estranged half-brother, Nubar, and he even goes on to suggest that Liesl was the love-child of the woman and Nubar. Zsa-zsa actually receives this suggestion from his own dead wife during a dreamlike reverie, as she tells him that Liesl is not his biological child. While Liesl now uses this information to further stress her theory of Zsa-zsa having killed her mother, the industrialist reveals some more truth regarding the matter.
Zsa-zsa claims to have lost his emotional composure after learning of his wife’s affair, that too with his half-brother, who was nothing short of an enemy to him, and had hatched a plan of revenge against the two. He had lied to Nubar about his wife (Nubar’s illicit lover) having an affair with another man, his secretary, in the hopes of making his half-brother feel the pain and contempt that he was already feeling. However, this lie had a brutal consequence, as Nubar murdered both the woman and the secretary out of anger and vengefulness. Incidentally, when Zsa-zsa and Nubar have a face-off in the end, the former confronts his brother about this, but Nubar denies being the biological father of Liesl, and also claims that he had nothing to do with her mother’s death. While this leaves the mystery of the murder of Liesl’s mother still unsolved, it is also to be remembered that Nubar ultimately comes off as the main antagonist, meaning that he could have possibly lied about him not being involved in the murder.
What is the main theme in the film?
Essentially, The Phoenician Scheme is about the complicated, difficult, and ever-evolving relationship between wealth and family, beginning at its most basic level and progressing to the more nuanced and tougher stages. At the very base, Zsa-zsa is a businessman who has always prioritized earning money and building a fortune over being with his family or giving them any time or attention at all. He has had three failed marriages, had sent his daughter away to a convent only to keep her away from boys at a young age, and adopts sons merely in the hope that some of them might turn out to be famous and important after growing up, and therefore be profitable investments. But as time passes, he does realize the importance of family and successors, albeit in a convoluted manner.
His efforts to get to know his family, in this case his daughter, begin only when he wants to just pass down his enormous wealth to someone, and so his perspective is still extremely clouded by the same money-mindedness. But things start to change when Liesl refuses to have anything to do with the family wealth, and the father and daughter also end up spending a lot of time together, which is a very new experience for both of them. As they delve into the past by discussing the unnatural death of his first wife, Zsa-zsa effectively starts to realize how he had ignored his loved ones in such a brutal manner. Along with this realization comes the very new urge to genuinely bond with his daughter and make her feel loved, which, in turn, leads to more changes in the man.
At the beginning of the film, Zsa-zsa is a highly immoral man, but he gradually learns the connection between morality and familial bonds, which becomes another recurring theme. He is now suddenly stuck in a strange situation in which he wants to love his daughter but is unable to do so simply because she refuses to be associated with him because of his moral values (or the lack of them). Thus, Zsa-zsa ultimately changes himself to bring Liesl into his life, and in the process, he genuinely becomes a morally good man who deserves praise. In simpler terms, The Phoenician Scheme appears to be like a fable that intends to teach us about familial love leading to moralistic reform of the most obnoxious of men.
Another lesson that the film intends to leave us with is with regard to the sense and understanding of family, or who can be considered family, and how a blood tie is not always necessary in this case. Zsa-zsa and Liesl actually come to terms with the thought that they do not have blood ties between them, as they both believe her to be the biological daughter of Nubar. Yet, they are at complete peace with the relationship and are happy to live as father and daughter forever. On the other extreme is Nubar, who does have blood ties with Zsa-zsa and yet wants to have him assassinated. In fact, it is their blood relation itself that turns them into enemies who want to kill each other, as this sort of blood feud is revealed to be a tradition in the Korda family. Hilda mentions having heard of this kind of a feud, in which brothers warred simply to prove themselves superior, between men of the family in the past.
What do the scenes in heaven mean?
The Phoenician Scheme also has a number of imaginary or dreamlike scenes, shot in monochrome, in which Zsa-zsa essentially finds himself in Heaven, trying to prove himself worthy of being allowed to enter the pearly gates. These scenes take place at moments when Zsa-zsa is immensely hurt, and there is the actual threat of him dying, which he avoids each time. Although initially seeming to be symbolically rich, the scenes in heaven do not ultimately come off as anything more than a representation of Zsa-zsa’s moral transformation. Towards the beginning, he tries to prove how he was a successful man, both in his professional and personal lives, but he continues making similar mistakes as during his lifetime.
In one of the scenes, he carries a deer, which he has just hunted, and presents it in front of his three dead wives, flaunting his nurturing nature as the sole breadwinner of the family. However, the deer turns out to be filled with gold coins and not meat, hinting at how he always believed that providing riches to his family was enough to be a good patriarch, without caring about their emotional needs at all. He even has to directly hear God talk about his immoral practices in order to finally believe that he needs to reform his ways. But ultimately, when Zsa-zsa has come to this realization in real life, the same is reflected in this dreamlike space in heaven as well, as he now appears to be leading, or at least walking together with, the celestial characters seen so far. In all probability, this suggests how he is now at peace with them, and the conflict that earlier existed is no longer present.
What happens to Zsa-zsa, Liesl, and Bjorn?
In The Phoenician Scheme’s ending, Zsa-zsa is able to defeat Nubar in a fistfight, and he manages to have Nubar blow himself up instead of launching any more attacks. The very brief, almost flash-like scene seems to suggest that Zsa-zsa manages to make Nubar realize how the two have been related since their very childhood and brings about a slight change in the devilish half-brother’s mind as well. Either way, he survives the ordeal and also has a change of heart as well, as he now decides to fund the gap from his own pocket, caring about the infrastructure project and the benefit it would bring to the people of Phoenicia instead of the profits he would be earning. He also starts to pay proper fees to the workers, abolishing slave labor practices, and ensures that the artificial food shortage is now over.
In order to fund all this, Zsa-zsa needs to sell off his fortune, and so he and Liesl move into a modest little house and run their own small eatery. Despite being poor, Zsa-zsa now feels content and at peace in life, without the fear of being assassinated for his money and also without the burden of being an evil capitalist. Meanwhile, the tutor and administrative assistant, Bjorn, had turned out to be an American spy working for Excalibur, but he too has a change of heart because of his love for Liesl, and so he leaves the profession and becomes a schoolteacher instead. Bjorn also proposes to Liesl, and she accepts, bringing the family together as a whole and happy unit, just like the perfect ending to any moralistic tale.
