The Phoenician Scheme

Espionage, Eccentricity, and a Monologue Delivered Entirely Through Eyebrow Raises

The Phoenician Scheme is the latest Wes Anderson film, which means it’s already been declared both “a masterpiece of visual symmetry” and “a crime against traditional narrative structure” depending on which corner of the internet you frequent.

I haven’t seen it. But I have seen the trailer, read three think pieces, and accidentally wandered into a Reddit thread titled “Was the lemon truly a metaphor?” So I’m basically an expert.

The plot, if you can call it that, follows an international cabal of emotionally detached spies as they unravel a Cold War-era mystery involving forged art, coded telegrams, and possibly a secret weapon disguised as a tea set. Jason Schwartzman plays a disillusioned cipher analyst who hasn’t blinked since 1997. Tilda Swinton plays a former double agent turned winemaker. Willem Dafoe may or may not be playing a sentient weather balloon.

There are trench coats. There are typewriters. There’s a recurring motif involving bees, time zones, and the haunting sound of a metronome. Half the dialogue is whispered in French and the other half is delivered while someone makes hard eye contact across a 12-foot mahogany desk.

Critics say it’s a “lovingly arranged meditation on espionage and existential drift,” which is film critic for “I don’t know what just happened but I feel smarter now.” Audiences say it’s “visually stunning,” which is what people say when they don’t want to admit they didn’t understand the part with the upside-down violin solo.

Somewhere around the 40-minute mark, there’s allegedly a scene where four spies silently communicate their mutual distrust through the choreography of folding pocket squares. This is followed by a slow zoom on a filing cabinet and a surprise cameo from Jeff Goldblum’s disembodied voice reading surveillance transcripts like bedtime poetry.

The Phoenician Scheme is about betrayal, bureaucracy, and beige. It’s less a film and more a highly curated panic attack set to a harpsichord soundtrack.

I give it 4 out of 5 cross-stitched dossiers, and I assume at least one character is a metaphor for colonial guilt wrapped in a lavender cravat.