“They say you murdered my mother,” the young would-be nun tells the shady tycoon. “I feel the need to address this.”

There’s something about the deadpan delivery and the clear-eyed manner that makes you sit up and take notice of Liesl, and even more of Mia Threapleton, who plays her in “The Phoenician Scheme.”

A vivid presence despite her dry-as-dust tone, Threapleton makes a splendid Andersonian debut here as half the father-daughter duo, along with Benicio del Toro, that drives the director’s latest creation. Their emerging relationship is what stands out amid the familiar Wes Andersonian details: the picture-book aesthetic. The meticulous production design. The chapter cards. The Hollywood cameos. And most of all, the intricate — nay, elaborate — plot.

Indeed, Anderson seems to be leaning into some of these characteristics here, giving the impression of becoming even more Wes Anderson than ever. He will likely delight his most ardent fans but lose others with the plot, which becomes exhausting to follow as we reach the midpoint of this tale.

But what is the Phoenician scheme, anyway?

It’s an ambitious, somewhat corrupt dream of one Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda (Del Toro), one of the richest industrialists in Europe, to exploit a vast region of the world. We begin in 1950, with yet another assassination attempt on Korda’s life — his sixth plane crash, to be exact.

Suddenly, in a hugely entertaining sequence, Korda’s in the cockpit, ejecting his useless pilot and directing his own rescue, asking ground control whether he should crash into a corn or soybean field. The media mourns his passing — and then he turns up, one eye mangled, biting into a husk of corn.

Recovering at his estate, Korda summons Liesl from the convent where he sent her at age 5. He wants her to be his sole heir — and avenger, should his plentiful enemies get him.

His plans are contained in a series of shoeboxes. But Liesl isn’t interested in the Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme. What she wants to know is who killed her mother. She mentions she and her father haven’t seen each other in six years. And she wonders why none of his nine sons, young boys he keeps in a dormitory, will be heirs. But Korda wants her.

They agree to a trial period. We get the creeping feeling Liesl will never make it back to the convent — maybe it’s the red lipstick, or the affinity she’s developing for jewels.

We should have mentioned by now the tutor, Bjørn. In his first Anderson film, Michael Cera inhabits this character with the right mix of commitment and self-awareness. “I could eat a horse,” he muses in a silly quasi-Norwegian accent before lunch, “and easily a pigeon!”

Now it’s on the road they go, to secure investments in the scheme. But the voyage involves a long line of characters only Anderson could bring to life.

Back on the plane, the group is strafed by a fighter jet. Soon, it’ll be revealed that one of them is a mole. We won’t tell you what happens with the big ol’ scheme — it was all about the journey, anyway. And about Korda and Liesl, who by the end have learned about each other but, even more, about themselves.

MPA rating: PG-13 (for violent content, bloody images, some sexual material, nude images, and smoking throughout)

Running time: 1:41

How to watch: In theaters