As recognisable as his penchant for symmetrical framing, whip-pans and French pop songs from the 1960s are Wes Anderson’s deeply flawed fathers and the families that endure their bad behaviour. From Dignan (Owen Wilson) haplessly looking to career criminal Mr Henry (James Caan) for paternal approval in 1996’s Bottle Rocket, to the grief-fuelled hostility between Augie (Jason Schwartzman) and father-in-law Stanley (Tom Hanks) in 2023’s Asteroid City, fathers and families, whether made up of blood relatives, colleagues or companions, are at the core of the director’s work.
In The Phoenician Scheme Anderson crafts another imperfect patriarch. Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) is an eccentric business tycoon – and the father of 10 children – with a knack for surviving plane crashes. And yet in this latest entry in the Anderson oeuvre the director turns his gaze away from fathers, sons and brothers towards the relationship between a father and daughter. Anderson had previously only touched on this dynamic, and this shift of focus can probably be credited to him becoming the father to a daughter in 2016.
