In Asteroid City a group of eccentric individuals gather to watch a junior stargazing event–one in which teens compete with their latest and greatest inventions. Headed by Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzmann) and his four children, this group of people experience something strange, something that will alter not only their lives, but the course of reality as they know it. Oh, and this is all a play written by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton).
If you’ve ever seen anything directed by Wes Anderson then you effectively know what to expect when going into Asteroid City. It keeps with a tone similar to just about everything he’s done before: subtle and dry. Humor transcends the entirety of the film, but it seems like Anderson has found a way to strengthen this comedy, to make it more prevalent throughout the course of his film–making the film awkward and almost uncomfortable from beginning to end. Due to the aggressively subtle humor strewn throughout the film, Asteroid City will certainly turn off some viewers–however, I found this to be incredibly charming. Sometimes conversations are overly dramatic, other times characters seemingly lack emotion, and in other instances it seems that just the right words are spoken to express a genuine understanding of the real world. Anderson finds ways to constantly switch things up and deliver comedy in just the right ways.
Asteroid City tackles the ideas of grief and acceptance–but I feel that there is a bigger picture here, that the film covers more than just grief and extensions of grief. This film feels like an attempt to address all of life as we know it. Sure, it addresses grief, but it also addresses things like anxiety, passion, obsession, and more–and the ability of Anderson to attack each of these topics, effectively, over the course of only an hour and forty-five minutes is more than impressive. Comedy, drama, mystery, and more converge to make parallels to the real world, to the struggles of man as we know them today. Asteroid City is pleasantly accurate in its attempt to create honesty and accessibility–and every step of the way helps to engulf viewers in something familiar.
The world knows that Anderson likes to fill his cast with as many big names as possible–but he always finds ways to cast correctly as well, and the star-studded cast never gets too big for Asteroid City. Part of the charm of the film is the massive cast. At every turn, up until the final minutes of the film, someone new appears. As the cast grows it adds to the comedy, truly becoming funny how many people Anderson was able to effectively cram into this film.
Throughout the course of Asteroid City there is a beautiful and brilliant juxtaposition of color that exists. There are moments of black and white, moments of powerful, vibrant colors, and moments of drab color that fill the screen. While each individual moment, each individual use of color (or lack of color) serves a purpose–as a whole the juxtapositional colors help to create tone and strengthen the narrative. Asteroid City is perfect in this regard, always finding ways to use color to tell a story, to develop characters, and more. In the moments when the film transitions (very drastically) from black and white to color, those are the hardest-hitting moments, and those are the moments that allow viewers to best understand Anderson’s goal and Asteroid City’s purpose.
Asteroid City is slow moving, convoluted, dry, and about a thousand other things that should flatten a film and cause it to fail. This team, led by Anderson, however, does an incredible job of pulling the best out of every moment and creating a film that brilliantly mirrors our reality. Every step of the way Asteroid City gets stronger, diving deeper into the human psyche and tackling things like grief and acceptance in a way that viewers can understand and appreciate.
Directed by Wes Anderson.
Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola.
Starring Jason Schwartzmann, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, Jeff Goldblum, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
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