Asteroid City (2023) | Dir Wes Anderson
Courtesy of Focus Features.
Text: Belle Mcyntire
So much has been said and written about Wes Anderson and his prolific output that it is daunting to know where to begin. I do not presume to have anything new to add to the voluminous verbiage or expressed opinions. The best that I can do is to offer up guidance and context to the uninitiated. Wes Anderson aficionados are practically cultish in their enthusiasm and need no hyperbole or punditry. Having said that, this one is for you. It is Wes Anderson on steroids. If you are on the fence, buyer beware. If you have no clue, keep an open mind. You could become a convert. Full disclosure, I am a fan.
Steve Carell, Aristou Meehan, and Liev Schreiber in Asteroid City. Courtesy of Focus Features.
The film opens with a vintage black and white television show hosted by Bryan Cranston featuring behind the scenes looks at the creative process and rehearsals of the eagerly anticipated new play Asteroid City by the reclusive playwright, Conrad Earp (Ed Norton). Cut to the set – suddenly everything is in eerily garish pastels with extremely flat lighting. Asteroid City is a 1950’s dusty desert settlement of 87 souls, a single-pump gas station, a ten-room motel, and a luncheonette. Amenities include vending machines dispensing, martinis and real estate. There is no flora or fauna except cactus and a roadrunner, surrounded by a marvelous landscape of rusty abandoned cars and trucks. The one and only attraction and claim to fame is a crater containing an asteroid said to have landed 5000 years ago (give or take) and an observatory. There is a highway that runs through it and a half-built overpass, and train tracks which cross the road. The only road traffic seems to be periodic police chases and the road runner who crosses it randomly.
Scarlett Johansson in Asteroid City. Courtesy of Focus Features.
The purpose for the setting is a convention of junior Stargazers, geeky teenage brainiacs, and inventors of bizarre gizmos, who are phenomenally awkward except with each other. They form a fascinating coalition of weirdos making up increasingly challenging mental games. The adults are an equally motley crew of misfits and oddballs. The manager of the motel Steve Carell, who sells square feet of real estate near the asteroid crater. Tilda Swinton is Dr. Hickenlooper, the president of the Asteroid City Resource Council. Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) arrives with his three young daughters and junior Stargazer contestant son, Woodrow. He is also carrying a tupperware container with the ashes of his wife who died three weeks ago, about whom he has yet to tell his children. Another junior Stargazer is the daughter of Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johanssen), a famous actress.
Jason Schwartzman and Tom Hanks in Asteroid City. Courtesy of Focus Features.
A few crazy things happen like a space ship landing over the crater with the asteroid as all of the Junior Stargazers are gathered. An adorable spindly space alien comes shyly out and picks up the asteroid (it is pretty small) and takes off with it in his space ship. As you can imagine, chaos erupts. The police come and quarantine everyone. The press and the public show up and a circus-like atmosphere rules as the loons and the goons face off. Everything goes haywire on the set and then the whole story gets ratcheted up a notch as another layer is opened which involves the characters as themselves, as actors, trying to figure out what the play is about. Need I say more about trying to follow the story? Just enjoy it and go along for the ride.
Jeffery Wright and Tony Revolori in Asteroid City. Courtesy of Focus Features.
There are so many visual tidbits liberally sprinkled with such casual aplomb that it is easy to miss them. It is also equally easy to miss the legion of A-list actors who have minuscule roles. Wes Anderson seems to have filled the vacuum for all of those actors who used to appear in Woody Allen films. But they have had to learn a unique style of acting which is a hallmark of Wes Anderson. It mirrors the sets and lighting in that it is flat. I believe he must work with his actors to mold them into the remote disconnected characters that they must play. And that might be the clue to the meaning behind all of the artifice. But far be it from me to presume to know the mind of the great Wes Anderson. It is wide open to interpretation.
