Wes Anderson has never been one for messy grief; he prefers it neat, folded into pocket squares, and served with a side of witty annotation. ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ is that temperament writ very large: an elegy in pastels about a man trying to auction off his own meaning, and a daughter trying, as daughters do, to file the receipts of a life into something that resembles reconciliation.

Benicio del Toro’s Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, sculpted in melancholy and moustache wax, is a study in curated regret — an oligarch who treats the world as if it were a set of chessmen to be varnished and passed on. He evades assassination attempts, remarking dryly, “Myself, I feel very safe” — even reaching heaven in one sepia-toned sequence that seemingly borrows, impeccably, from ‘The Colour of Pomegranate

See Full Page