Wes Anderson, Tom Hanks, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, et al look for Space While Delightfully Cloistered
DIRECTED BY WES ANDERSON/2023
You’d have had to have been in Asteroid City in 1955 to believe it.
For one week, the desert town home to an unfinished interstate becomes a collection of an unusual assortment of residents. In honor of the anniversary of the falling of an ancient asteroid, the Junior Stargazers are holding an award ceremony for teen science whizzes who have developed one-of-a-kind inventions. Winners and their parents include a war photographer (Jason Schwartzman) and his son (Jake Ryan) who can project images onto the moon; their father-in-law/grandfather (Tom Hanks); a movie star (Scarlett Johansson); as well as the general (Jeffrey Wright), his aide (Tony Revolori), and scientist (Tilda Swinton) hosting the event. Also in town: an elementary school teacher (Maya Hawke) leading a class field trip, the motel manager (Steve Carell), an auto mechanic (Matt Dillon), and drifter cowboys (including Rupert Friend).
But one more character will be making an arrival if only the playwright (Edward Norton) of Asteroid City could find the inspiration he needs for his work. Outside Asteroid City is another world all its own, one with a struggling director (Adrien Brody), an improv instructor (Willem Dafoe), and an elusive actress (Margot Robbie), among others. Having trouble keeping it all straight? Don’t worry—our narrator (Bryan Cranston) is here to help you keep it all straight.
JIM TUDOR: It’s all true! (Well, not true true…) If by chance you yourself are planning a stay in Asteroid City, best pack thoroughly! That is, if the legend is to be believed…
With this road-trip to the middle of nowhere, Anderson brings it all back home to the U.S. of A. In Asteroid City, Roadside Americana must to shelter in place alongside youthful innovation (some delightfully and dangerously unhinged) and a melting pot of disaffected grownups. The area surrounding an on-ramp to nowhere is pockmarked with automotive lost causes up on blocks, a no-frills motel, and not much else. Except for the asteroid chunk. Or is it a meteor…? Whatever. It’s a hallowed hunk of space rock that touched down there eons ago, and has since remained on display in its crater, now adorned with hand painted signage and stantioned cue lines for curious tourists.
That is, until the tiny town gets a very strange visitor. It’s a close encounter of the third kind for the very first time, and it sets the military on edge to say the least. No one gets in or out until the General figures out what’s what with the situation. While the quarantine itself is a multi pronged bungle of hubris-laden authority and ineffectual science, there’s at least one more layer of meaning beyond all that. In fact, after all these years of accusations of being nothing but a twee visual stylist and mocker of his own characters (both criticisms being way off base, by the way), Asteroid City might be the first film in which Wes Anderson is relaying a message. And he makes quite clear we hear it. (We can unravel it later).
It’s set in a very particular past, but speaks to today, and beyond. And it goes about it many different ways. A play, a movie, a TV special about the play… all at the same darn time! While watching it all play out through its varied windows, frames and contexts, I in fact did feel a little lost at times. Narrator Cranston, summoning up his best Walter Cronkite, did indeed help. And it helped to remember, if I’m momentarily confused, just imagine how the quarantined denizens of Asteroid City feel!
TAYLOR BLAKE: Something Wes Anderson does not get enough credit for: The man has never made a film longer than two hours! When you never overstay your welcome, you only leave your audience wanting more, and this is true as ever for Asteroid City.
Not that praising Anderson is anything new for me. The French Dispatch was my favorite film of 2021 partly because it’s one of the rare few I wish were longer. Asteroid follows a similar story-within-a-story structure, but instead of exploring of loneliness, it is a comedy about trying to make sense of the senseless. Our road-tripping family is processing the death of a wife and mother. Our screen actress is attempting to understand a troubled character. The government and its researchers are applying the scientific method to unprecedented events. A teacher is adjusting her lesson plans when her students ask difficult questions. Not that any of that is new for us—or wait, is this movie just helping us process our experience through a senseless pandemic?
The parallels between the quarantined Asteroid City and our COVID-era are thinly veiled, but don’t let that deter you from watching if you fear it will feel too close to home. Anderson is a master at making despair go down with a spoonful of museum-worthy framing. This spring’s trend of Wes Anderson-inspired content may have brought attention to the previously unacquainted, but it took only a few of those superficially xanthic posts to exhaust my Instagram feed. Most social media filmmaking is ugly and chaotic, but Anderson’s attention to detail when blocking his troupe of players in a golden ratio, designing perfectly-shaped mushroom clouds, and using color theory to select his palette doesn’t just hold up on a big screen—it deserves it.
The cinematography and production design are worth the price of admission, but they’re not the only reason he leaves us wanting more. It’s also because every character in the large ensemble of Asteroid City feels three-dimensional even with just a few moments. It’s because the phrase “specifically a rabbit” gave me one of the biggest laughs in a movie this year. It’s because the 104 minutes fits in a square dance to a song called “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven).” (So yes, if his films have been too twee for you in the past, this one will be, too.) I’m left wanting more because no frame is wasted and every moment suggests a larger world just beyond the credits. My only complaint? Not enough Jeff Goldblum, though perhaps the message of Asteroid City is I just need to learn to live with thing like that which don’t make sense.