Asteroid City
Wes Anderson assembles another coterie of robotic eccentrics who pitch up at a remote desert enclave with a cosmic bent.
Stargazing: Jason Schwartzman and Tom Hanks.
Courtesy of Universal Pictures
One really has to be in the right mood to see a Wes Anderson film. He can be so off the chart that he takes you totally by surprise and either delights or infuriates. Of course, Quirky is his middle name and sometimes his notions fall deliciously into place – as in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) – and sometimes not so much – as in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). He is a brilliant auteur, a great intellect and is forever pushing the parameters of his art form, in any direction he sees fit. But his meta, deadpan custom can turn into the sort of self-indulgence one might encounter during an after-dinner speech from a learned academic on weed.
Anderson’s refreshingly experimental, non-mainstream style attracts all sorts of well-established actors (Jeff Goldblum has one line here) who are paid the same, be they Jason Schwartzman (Wes Anderson’s muse and alter ego) or Tom Hanks. Here, an all-star ensemble plays variations of the same character, a robotic type who spouts non sequiturs in a monotone. Several characters say “I understand” and “that’s true” quite a lot, while Jason Schwartzman’s son Woodrow Steenbeck (Jake Ryan) informs us, “I like gravity.” Some might accuse Wes Anderson of showing off, as he sprinkles his dialogue with delicately configured intellectual conceits which can only take his films so far.
Here, Asteroid City is a work penned by an established playwright played by a one-note Edward Norton, who sets the scene in a desert outpost (pop. 87) in 1955. There’s not much to distinguish Asteroid City besides a garage, a diner and a scattering of ‘cottages’ that constitute a motel managed by Steve Carell. The centre piece is the Arid Plains Meteorite Monument, bestowing the place with an air of mystery and cosmic allure. As a motley crew of eccentrics materialise for various reasons (there’s a stargazer’s convention on the books), our host, Bryan Cranston, periodically pops up to remind us that what we are watching is merely a fabrication of Edward Norton’s imagination. The joke – if you can call it that – is that Cranston is for the most part consigned to the confines of a black-and-white TV; at least, for as long as he remembers his place.
All this is tiresomely self-conscious and self-indulgent in which most of the cast members comport themselves as if in a trance. The best that one can say for it is that it is at least tonally consistent, although a spontaneous song-and-dance number might awaken those who have dozed off. There is a rare moment – much like when Marcel Marceau uttered the only word in Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie – when Tom Hanks (as Schwartzman’s father-in-law) exhibits a flash of emotion (frustration? anger?). It’s just a shame that it only lasts for three seconds.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Jason Schwartzman, 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, Sophia Lillis, Fisher Stevens, Ethan Josh Lee, Grace Edwards, Aristou Meehan, Bob Balaban, Ella Faris, Gracie Faris, Willan Faris, Rita Wilson, Jarvis Cocker.
Dir Wes Anderson, Pro Wes Anderson, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson, Screenplay Wes Anderson, from a story by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Ph Robert Yeoman, Pro Des Adam Stockhausen, Ed Barney Pilling, Music Alexandre Desplat, Costumes Milena Canonero, Dialect coach Tanera Marshall.
American Empirical Pictures/Indian Paintbrush-Universal Pictures.
105 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 16 June 2023. UK Rel: 23 June 2023. Cert. 12A.
