"Asteroid City" is a comedy drama film written and directed by Wes Anderson ("The Royal Tenenbaums", "Moonrise Kingdom", "The Grand Budapest Hotel"). Featuring an ensemble cast including the likes of Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, and Edward Norton, it aims to satisfy hardcore fans of the director's work but alienates any potential newcomers.
In a retro-futuristic 1955, playwright Conrad Earp's (Edward Norton) latest play "Asteroid City" is being televised with introductory information provided by its host (Bryan Cranston). The play follows a group of people who travel to the desert town of Asteroid City, Arizona in order to attend a youth stargazer convention. Among the attendees are widowed photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) and his teenaged son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and three young daughters, actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) and her daughter Dinah (Grace Edwards), General Grif Gibson (Jeffrey Wright), scientist Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton), elementary school teacher June Douglas (Maya Hawke) and her class, and a singing cowboy named Montana (Rupert Friend). As the event begins, things seem to be moving smoothly but soon all the participants experience something unexplainable that change their views on life forever.
If there were ever a filmmaker who could be considered the very embodiment of the term "quirky", it would be Wes Anderson. Well, at least one of the more notable examples. Ever since making a name for himself all the way back in 1996, Anderson has essentially crafted out his own unique world in each of his films, treating the audience to interesting camera placement, eccentric characters, unusual settings, and lengthy scenes of explanatory dialogue. For his eleventh film "Asteroid City", Anderson pays tribute to a bygone era of American history, that being the mythology surrounding extraterrestrial life on Earth in post-war times, in his signature style that may test even the most devoted fans of his handiwork.
Where the film falls short of Anderson's better projects is in its uninvolving plot, something of which usually isn't a problem in his films. It is clear the film is supposed to be a story-within-a-story, as it is structured like how a play would look from the imagination of the playwright. Normally I enjoy this meta approach to storytelling, yet at no point did I ever feel fully invested in this story about all these people who just so happen to be at an astronomy convention at the same time. Though each of their stories are somewhat linked together, they never felt like they flowed naturally from one to the other. In many of Anderson's other films, there's an organic connection that links all the story elements into one whereas here it all seemed like the characters only interact with each other arbitrarily rather than for the benefit of the plot. As a result, the film just doesn't have that important emotional attachment to the audience and because of this, it is near impossible to care about anything crucial occurring throughout the story.
Although the plot is distinctly lacking, the film at least has plenty of that unique Wes Anderson visual style for his fans to appreciate. Regardless of the overall quality of some of Anderson's movies, I've always loved the way each of them look. Similar to his previous film "The French Dispatch", Anderson cuts between certain scenes in black-and-white and colour as a way to distinguish between what is happening in the real world versus the play itself. Many of the shots that take place within the play are so meticulously set up that while I didn't care for what was happening at that point in the story, I still couldn't help but admire the attention-to-detail that must have gone into creating that particular look. One scene features a ferris wheel positioned perfectly symmetrical in the frame with the action taking place around it while another shows a group of children all sitting cleverly lined up listening to a musical act perform. Describing these shots doesn't really do them justice as they need to be seen to be properly acknowledged but I'm sure most Wes Anderson fans will understand where I am coming from.
Another trademark of Anderson is his tendency to use large ensemble casts in almost all of his movies, and this one features probably his biggest yet. Actors ranging from frequent collaborators like Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Willem Dafoe, to new additions like Tom Hanks, Maya Hawke, and Scarlett Johansson all make up this film's world of quirky characters. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, the story doesn't really allow for most of them to leave any real impression. Usually I can remember several scenes in Anderson's films that involve even the most minor of character, not simply because of how well known the actor is but rather because they actually contribute something noteworthy to the story. Here, only a small handful of characters are truly memorable, and that's only due to the fact that the plot placed a significant focus on them as opposed to everyone else. There are no real scene-stealers nor are there any standouts among the new faces, instead most of the supporting cast are reduced to forgettable cameos that I had to look up afterwards to confirm if it really was them.
With all of that said, I think the cast member who left the most impression on me was Jason Schwartzman as Augie, a photographer who attends the convention with his intellectual son. Augie is your stereotypical Wes Anderson protagonist; he's socially awkward, he feels emotionally distant from his family, and he craves approval from everyone around him. In any other case, I would have been bothered by a relatively one-note character like this but compared to most others in the film he was easily one of the most interesting. I enjoyed watching him interact with Scarlett Johansson's character Midge, a famous actress whose apathetic personality contrasts to his own longing for validation. These two had the most in-depth relationship in the whole film, which managed to hold my attention through even the blandest of scenes. Given the size of the film's already huge cast, this is quite a letdown.
Even for the most dedicated fan of Wes Anderson, "Asteroid City" is bound to be a challenging viewing experience. While all of the signature visual flair and quirkiness is present as always, it lacks the most important aspect of all, and that is in its ability to emotionally connect with the audience. There just isn't enough reason to justify recommending this film to people outside of Wes Anderson completists, and even then there isn't a whole lot worth seeing that hasn't already been done before, only better. I remain hopeful that Anderson can return to form in a future production, but for now things don't look too promising.
I rate it 6/10.
