Why Wes Anderson Changed His Mind About God In ‘The Phoenician Scheme’
(ANALYSIS) Religion is not the first thing people think of when someone mentions Wes Anderson. The auteur director is known for his quirky humor, exacting cinematography and production design, touching stories and his children’s storybook aesthetic.
But Anderson’s most recent film, “The Phoenician Scheme.” very explicitly affirms faith. This is all the more surprising because his previous film was one of the most moving anti-faith films of the past 20 years.
What explains this? Why did Anderson change his portrayal of faith so radically between his last film and his latest one? A big part of the reason may be that it reflects developments in our culture’s attitude towards religion in general. Let’s start with “Asteroid City,” Anderson’s last film before “The Phoenician Scheme.”
“Asteroid City” is a masterful anti-faith film, both in its content and execution. The story centers on widower Augie Steenbeck (played by Jason Schwartzman) and his children, who deal with the death of his wife and their mother while being trapped in a military quarantine along with the rest of a remote town in the 1950s after witnessing the arrival of aliens.
Augie struggles to find meaning in his wife’s death because he’s an atheist. (“Let’s say she’s in heaven. Which doesn’t exist for me, of course, but you’re Episcopalian”). His kids were raised by their mother to be Christian. But his son, Woodrow, after witnessing the aliens, concludes at the end that he no longer believes in God. It’s not explained why precisely. But having gotten a glimpse of a transcendent intelligence that, in the end, simply leaves while only barely acknowledging them seems to have had the effect on him to make him conclude God is unlikely to exist.
The film rejects figuring out how to find meaning in life as a way to deal with suffering. Jones Hall, the actor who has to figure out how to play the role of Augie in the play, can’t figure out the meaning of the story and the character he’s playing — but the author tells him that’s OK. By the end, both Augie and Woodrow decide to turn their attention from grander ambitions of meaning-making to their present-day romantic relationships.
What’s truly brilliant about this movie is how well this take on suffering and death works with Anderson’s style. Anderson is often rightly noted as a meticulous filmmaker. But one thing that is much more rarely commented on is how perfect his style is for portraying what grief looks like in an indifferent universe. Anderson tends to shoot his subjects at a distance, using a lot of medium or wide shots. He often leaves music blank or chooses a sound that is in contrast with the emotions the characters are actually feeling. This creates an emotional distance between us and the characters that is a big part of why his movies are so funny.
But when this movie is about characters you care about dealing with grief, there’s an added layer you experience. You feel for the characters because the actors and the script do such a good job of making you feel what they’re going through. You’re forced by the camera to have distance between them.
This creates an effect that actually simulates the experience of grieving in a godless, meaningless universe. Because you feel your own grief, you are cut off from the feeling that this feeling has real significance. In a real sense, the camera is God, and God is largely indifferent. The music of your feelings is real to you (but it’s not real to the universe). This is why it so often doesn’t play in the film itself.
And yet, on the heels of this, Anderson’s latest film, “The Phoenician Scheme,” is easily his most religious film to date. The story follows wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda, who appoints his only daughter, Lieselpho, a nun, as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise with her, she slowly helps him see how his immoral business behavior is bad and eventually converts him to Catholicism.
On the surface, the plot of “The Phoenician Scheme” is a severe whiplash from the 2023 film “Asteroid City.” One movie says there is no God or transcendent meaning. The next has a crooked businessman who is converted from wickedness by his religious daughter and converted to Catholicism. He even has consistent visions of God to heaven and being condemned by the Almighty and the angels and saints for his wicked business practices.
Not only does the story seem to contradict the previous film, but it seems to contradict Anderson’s preferred aesthetics. The world of “The Phoenician Scheme” is supposedly not indifferent to the drama of the characters' lives, but lives inside it. It’s one where the suffering of slaves and the vulnerable are at the forefront. It’s where angels rejoice when a sinner repents. And yet we retain Anderson’s odd, indifferent style. The camera constantly retains its distance from these moments — meaning they get either a laugh or nothing at all. We feel like we’re supposed to feel the sincerity of what’s going on, but we struggle because of the aesthetic alienation he creates in us.
At a deeper glance, there’s more unity than you might think. Korda’s conversion is sincere, insofar as he’s deciding to convert to the name and practices of the faith, but he admits he’s doing it even though it runs against his personal convictions. Likewise, his daughter Liesel admits that she prays and does what she thinks God would have her do, but doesn’t actually get an answer back. This form of faith is seeing it as something you practice and obey, even if you don’t feel it or experience it as real — and maybe don’t even believe it.
When we look back on “Astroid City,” we see shades of this as well. At the end of the film, Augie’s father-in-law, Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks) wants to give his daughter a proper burial, but his granddaughters insist on her final resting place being Asteroid City. But his granddaughters (who believe they are witches) insist, and Stanley admits, “I no longer have the strength to fight for her dignity. … So we’ll defer to the wishes of her stubborn daughters.”
Like Korda, Zak gives in to the beliefs of the women in his life, despite them being against his own convictions. This form of faith–submitting to the practices — even when they contradict your beliefs — has grown in popularity. Renowned religion sociologist Ryan Burge explains in his new book, “The American Religious Landscape,” that religion can be broken down into three categories: Belief, belonging, and practice. And for his mind (as he discussed on my “Overthinkers” podcast), the data shows that most of the benefits come from the “practice side”: Going to church regularly makes people less lonely and better people.
Likewise, thought leaders like Jordan Peterson have argued that people should go to church, even if they don’t believe in it: “Who cares what you believe? Why is this about you? Do you even want it to be about you?”
There’s some sense in this. After all, most of the evidence we seem to have suggests Burge is correct: Tt’s the practices of religion that drive most of the mental health benefits and character formation, whether that’s financial generosity, divorce rates, or reductions in toxic masculinity.
However, there are problems with this. Most people can’t maintain practices without either strong personal beliefs or severe community pressure. It feels empty and hollow. As I pointed out to Burge on my podcast, this is exactly what the mainline denominations of Christianity advocated for: Do the practices without the beliefs. The result? They have collapsed far faster and further than the conservative evangelical denominations, which emphasize the importance of beliefs and practices.
This incongruency is what one experiences when watching “The Phoenician Scheme.” We are going through the motions, the narrative beats of a religious redemption story, but don’t experience it. It's an empty ritual. It engages the mind, but not the heart. It is fittingly the version of faith Anderson is advocating for.
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at josephholmesstudios.com.