Movie Review: Asteroid City

Writer/director Wes Anderson’s newest film, Asteroid City, finds the director firing on all cylinders in a movie that defines what a Wes Anderson movie is: visually stunning, immaculately constructed, a stellar ensemble cast, funny and bright with layers of sadness to it.

The film opens in a black-and-white, nearly squared frame with a Twilight Zone-like Host (Bryan Cranston) explaining that we are about to watch a television program about the making of a play titled Asteroid City written by legendary playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton). The Host informs us “‘Asteroid City’ does not exist. It is an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast. The characters are fictional, the text hypothetical, the events an apocryphal fabrication—but together they present an authentic account of the inner-workings of a modern theatrical production.”

We then cut to Asteroid City, the small desert town with a population of 83 people that sits near a nuclear bomb testing facility and whose claim to fame is a giant meteor hole right in the middle of the town. The town is taken over by a slew of characters coming in for a Young Stargazers and Space Cadets competition that features young geniuses showcasing inventions they have created for the U.S. government and scientists. Some of the visitors include Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), a war photographer struggling to tell his children their mother just died, Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks), Augie’s father-in-law who is coming to pick up Augie and the kids after their car breaks down, Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), an Elizabeth Taylor-like actress, and June (Maya Hawke), an elementary school teacher guiding her class on a field trip. As the whole town gathers for an event honoring the Young Stargazers and Space Cadets, they are met with an extraterrestrial event that shocks everyone. Following this event, the entire town is put on lockdown and everyone who witnessed the event is searching for answers to questions that might not have any.

Anderson cuts back and forth between the television program and the fictional events of Asteroid City. Everything that has to do with the television program is in black-and-white and the square Academy ratio frame while the events in Asteroid City are all in bright pastel colors and widescreen. Sound confusing? It is a little bit at the beginning, but if you’re a Wes Anderson fan, you’ve come to expect nothing less from the director, especially considering his last two live-action films, The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch, both had similar framing devices.

The events that take place in Asteroid City were my favorite parts of the movie and whenever the film would cut back to the television production, it felt like the film would come to slow drag for a brief moment only to pick up speed again when it cut back to the dazzling desert. But as the film progressed and the themes of the two stories started to come together, so did the film for me. In both stories, we are watching people struggling to find answers. In Asteroid City, we see characters struggle to handle the extraterrestrial encounter and look for answers about what else is out there and what the encounter meant. In the television production, we see Conrad struggling to write a scene that may not have one specific answer and we see an actor (who is playing Augie in the play, also played by Jason Schwartzman) wanting answers to Augie as a character and understanding his sadness and his actions. Both stories remind us that not everything has an answer, and that’s okay.

Besides being known for his visual aesthetic and use of color, Wes Anderson’s films usually boast stellar ensembles and Asteroid City might be his biggest yet. Along with Schwartzman, Johansson, Hanks, Hawke, Cranston, and Norton, we also get performances from Anderson regulars like Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, and Jeffrey Wright along with first-time Anderson collaborators like Steve Carrell, Hope Davis, Matt Dillon, Liev Schrieber, and Margot Robbie, who gives a tremendous performance in one scene.

There are a slew of other actors in the film and no matter how big or how small the character is in the film, every actor gives a good performance and every character is interesting. I would go as far as to say that nearly every character could warrant their own movie. I would love to watch a Wes Anderson movie about Augie’s time as a war photographer or Adrien Brody’s eccentric play director or Steve Carrell’s motel manager who has vending machines that can get you anything from a candy bar to a vodka tonic to a plot of Asteroid City land. Anderson shows his love and cares for every character in the film, and I cannot wait to revisit the film so I can spend more time with each of them.

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