Asteroid City
Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Jake Ryan, Scarlett Johansson, Grace Edwards, Maya Hawke, Rupert Friend, Jeffrey Wright, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Liev Schreiber, Tom Hanks, Matt Dillon, Seu Jorge, Jarvis Cocker, Steve Carell, Tony Revolori, Bob Balaban, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie
Seen on: 4.7.2023

Plot:
Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) has written a play about a widowed father and photographer, Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) traveling to Asteroid City with his children. Asteroid City is famous for its crater and crater-causing asteroid and is about to host a science convention in which Augie’s son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) is participating. Earp’s play is currently rehearsing and things are tense on Broadway, as they are in Asteroid City.

It’s been a while that I saw a Wes Anderson film – I felt a little “Andersoned out”, if you will. But it seems that the break did us well. I thoroughly enjoyed Asteroid City that feels like a return back to form for Anderson (I say, judging the last films before this one from trailers).

The film has all the Anderson trademarks, from the stylized production design to the shots he sets up to the type of main character he prefers (that is: nerdy guys). I am not exactly sure why it feels so much fresher than recent efforts to me. Maybe simply because I skipped the last few films. Be that as it may, I am happy for that.

Asteroid City is a dense film, combining several narrative layers and a plethora of characters, almost all of which are played by stars. And then there are aliens. Yet somehow it doesn’t at all feel too much. The narrative layers are easy to follow and each engaging in their own way. And the aliens are the most hilarious shit I have seen in a long while. I laughed until I cried.

The film does have some problems. Not unusually for Anderson, it struggles with giving its female characters much inner life, still seeing them more as romantic interests than actual people. Amidst all of the bustle and layers, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting a calmer moment, though personally, I found the film surprisingly calm, albeit with moments of incoherence.

The cast is as good as you’d expect from a name list of this magnitude, and they nicely bounce off each other. In short, Asteroid City makes for an entertaining evening filled with whimsy. You might need to be in the mood for an Anderson film, but if you are, there are definitely worse choices than this one from his filmography.

Summarizing: a good time for sure.