Specific auteur Wes Anderson has gained a following of devoted acolytes throughout his career. His style is unique, yet often copy-and-pasted from movie-to-movie, which doesn’t give audience members agnostic to his style a chance to warm up to him. In his latest, “Asteroid City,” Anderson’s toolbox of quirks is on display, but he finds new ways into them.
This alone makes “Asteroid City” one of his better films to date.
Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums” remains the opus of his career, but “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” another one of his stronger efforts, became one of his most successful within the industry (the movie garnered nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Anderson). From time-to-time, Anderson makes a movie that transcends his niche, but other times he doesn’t seem interested in going outside his comfort zone.
“Asteroid City” is one of the more interesting from a structural standpoint. The movie opens with The Host (Bryan Cranston) setting up the story of the inhabitants of Asteroid City. His part, shot in black-and-white, shows the behind-the-scenes making of Asteroid City, a fictional play shown in the film with scenes painted in typical Anderson aesthetic of bright, pop-up storybook colors.
Like most of Anderson’s work, his cast is deep and vast – longtime collaborator Jason Schwartzman is a focal point as Augie, a wartime photographer. Augie is a widower with three children, who arrive in the play portion of Asteroid City for a stargazing event. Also coming to Asteroid City is movie star Midge (Scarlett Johansson), Liev Schreiber’s J.J. Kellogg and Hope Davis’s Sandy Borden. A lot of Anderson’s usual players are in the mix, including Edward Norton, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton and (briefly) Willem Dafoe. Tom Hanks, Steve Carrell, Maya Hawke, Matt Dillion and Margot Robbie are new entrants to Anderson’s repertory. It’s a fun cast, but no one is afforded a chance to stand out as the movie bounces from one character to another frequently.
The back-and-forth structure can be jarring at times, but the effort to create something different is evident on screen and worthy of applause. At this point in Anderson’s career, he can rest easy on his indie laurels, which often make his movies feel like an inside joke between his actors and the audiences who are on his wavelength. It can be alienating for others and keep some audience members at arm’s length.
“Asteroid City” is also a tonal diversion featuring a sci-fi plotline – what happens as a result causes the characters in the play to stay in Asteroid City under quarantine, creating a sense of uncertainty about what comes next for them. The fictional Asteroid City is a wide-open land, but the setting’s openness only emphasizes the characters’ isolation. Is it Anderson’s reflection on the past three years? Perhaps, on the surface, and it’s occasionally quite effective. “Asteroid City” is weird enough to linger once the credits have rolled, rather than dismissed as just another Wes Anderson film.
“Asteroid City” opens Thursday, June 22 at The Little Theatre. Tickets here.
Matt Passantino is a freelance writer for CITY. Feedback about this article may be directed to Editor Leah Stacy, leah@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2023.
