Following a writer on his world famous fictional play about a grieving father who travels with his tech-obsessed family to small rural Asteroid City to compete in a stargazing event, only to have his world view disrupted forever. Director Wes Anderson’s surrealist riff on the 1950’s is stacked with noteworthy actors, gorgeously colorful production design, and an expected amount of deadpan quirky humor the filmmaker is known for. The film mainly centers around war photographer and recent widower Augie, played by Jason Schwartzman who does an excellent job at portraying a grieving father with humorous subtlety and reserved emotion. Accompanying Augie is his genius teenage son Woodrow played by Jake Ryan along with three younger daughters who are practically in the middle of a desert city for a Junior Stargazers competition. Jake Ryan as Woodrow (appropriately nicknamed Brainiac) is quite good at playing the shy nerdy teenager and has fine interplay with the other young cast members, particularly Dinah played by Grace Edwards.
Scarlet Johansson as suicidal movie star Midge Campbell is a fine supporting character, and her straight-faced conversations with Schwartzman’s Augie are as awkwardly funny as they are soberingly poignant. There are simply too many cast members to name, but the standouts amongst the smaller roles are Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, and Bryan Cranston’s 4th wall breaking narrator. There is one scene in which Tom Hanks’ character Stanley has a brief manic outbursts of sorts, and it’s possibly the most candidly hilarious moment in the veteran actor’s extensive career. On top of all the existential themes of desire, death, familial ties, loneliness, and the meaning of life, the film takes a look at how an idyllic town of Americans perceive extraterrestrial life in the 50’s during Cold War era paranoia. Without going into detail, there are two specific scenes in which the community of Asteroid City are met with an unexpected visitor. The two very different reactions from the townspeople to this visitor are perhaps the funniest and most Wes Anderson-like portrayal of an alien invasion we’ll ever get.
The metaphysical play-within-a-TV-special-within-a-movie complex of this movie both serves as its strength and at times its weakness. It’s so abstract and allegorical in its overall narrative presentation that it will undoubtedly isolate many general movie-goers. Asteroid City feels like Anderson’s most personal film of recent years, and this aspect is likely to go over better with the director’s adherents as opposed to his detractors. Also, it may take another viewing to fully decipher the film’s actual meaning. Side note: The use of title cards for Act I-III along with the individual scenes embedded in each act was a cool throwback to older films and there’s even an “Intermission Optional” title card, which was especially pleasing to see. Overall, Wes Anderson's star-studded surrealist take on the 1950's offers stellar performances from its ensemble cast, impeccable shot composition/production design, and just enough of the director's signature quirky deadpan humor to make up for an uneven over-arching story. Strictly recommended for Wes Anderson fans only.
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