Asteroid City

UK Release Date. 23 June 2023
Certification. 12A
Running Time. 1 hour 45 mins
Director. Wes Anderson
Cast. Bob Balaban, Adrien Brody, Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon, Grace Edwards, Tom Hanks, Maya Hawke, Scarlett Johansson, Edward Norton, Stephen Park, Margot Robbie, Jake Ryan, Liev Schreiber, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Jeffrey Wright.
Rating. 42%

Review.

Wes Anderson's latest film, Asteroid City, is a retro-futuristic ensemble piece set in a remote, space-obsessed town in the Southwestern United States in the 1950s. The titular city in the middle of a desert welcomes the Junior Stargazer's & Space Cadets convention to town, only to find attendees quarantined after encountering an alien life-form.

Asteroid City appears to be a film confined within a Broadway play, but a black-and-white prologue, featuring Bryan Cranston as its narrator informs the audience that we're not going to watch the play, but a television programme about the making of the play, instead. Confused? I know I was.

As ever, Wes Anderson produces a film that is meticulously designed, with gorgeous visuals and offers a plethora of intriguing oddball characters. Nonetheless, Asteroid City felt empty and vacuous; even bland in comparison to much of his work. The intervening scenes are more like individual sketches rather than parts of a cohesive storyline.

When I reviewed the director's previous release, The French Dispatch, I commented, "For the first time I found a Wes Anderson film interminable and exasperating."

I suspect diehard fans of Wes Anderson will be content with Asteroid City and the director's trademark eccentricities, but I am not convinced that the film will win over those already skeptical of the director's ostentatious style. From my point of view, Asteroid City comes perilously close to a whimsical venture away from human emotion to self-congratulatory indulgence. An exchange between two characters perfectly encapsulates the film (and potentially much of Wes Anderson's work by extrapolation),

Jones Hall: "I still don't understand the play!"

Schubert Green: "Doesn't matter, just keep telling the story."

I now begin to wonder if The Grand Budapest Hotel was Wes Anderson's tour de force. His masterpiece. When every aspect of his filmmaking powers was on point and his art was truly perfected? I hope not. I hope there is more to come.