A more wistful film than usual by Anderson, who is back in fine form as we enter the world of a fictional play populated by a range of eccentric characters.
Review #2,665
Dir. Wes Anderson
2023 | USA | Drama, Comedy | 105 min | 2.39:1 | English
M18 (passed clean) on appeal for brief graphic nudity, smoking and some suggestive material
Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton
Plot: Following a writer on his world-famous fictional play about a grieving father who travels with his tech-obsessed family to the small rural Asteroid City to compete in a junior stargazing event, only to have his world view disrupted forever.
Awards: Nom. for Palme d’Or (Cannes)
Distributor: United International Pictures
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Unlikely Connections; Community; Theatre
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Mainstream
Viewed: In Theatres – The Projector Golden Mile
Spoilers: No
After the debacle that was The French Dispatch (2021), which was to me Wes Anderson’s weakest film, one that I nearly walked out on, Asteroid City sees him back in fine form, thus restoring some measure of faith in him.
Although the film is unmistakably Anderson’s, it still does feel like he is trapped in his own creative prison and pursuing an aesthetics of regression to its very extreme.
Having said that, Asteroid City somehow works because it is a more wistful film than usual, recalling The Royal Tenebaums (2001) in tone. Instead of a dysfunctional family, we have groups of eccentric characters in Asteroid City, as we enter the world of a fictional play.
Intercutting with black-and-white segments which are meant to be ‘behind-the-scenes’ set backstage, a story unfolds about a man whose wife had recently passed on as he brings his children to the eponymous locale to partake in a junior stargazing event.
The town begins to populate with people and everyone becomes temporary neighbours. Somehow the whole visual and narrative construct reminds me of Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003) in its conceptual artifice and self-pretence.
“You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep”
And like Jacques Rivette’s radically-mounted Noroit (1976), intertitles containing ‘Acts’ and ‘Scenes’ are inserted conspicuously, though this feels much more natural considering it’s about a play.
Something happens at the film’s midpoint (one of Anderson’s most spellbinding moments) which drastically alters the trajectory of the narrative, with the characters realising that their short stay might be unexpectedly prolonged.
Jason Schwartzman is excellent as the grieving father, while Scarlett Johansson steals almost every scene she’s in as a lonely woman with a daughter.
Ultimately, Asteroid City is Anderson’s take on the ‘wild west’ and nostalgia for the ‘50s. It is neither a paean nor an elegy, but as I said, it sure is wistful.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 