Asteroid City Review

Wes Anderson has made a new film, just like the old films, and you will probably chuckle at it and be delighted like the smug little shit that you are.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Synopsis

We follow the narrative of a writer who is writing a play in real time as though the play is happening in real life. If that sounds confusing, it is.

The characters in the play find themselves in a remote desert location called Asteroid city for a young scientists competition and stargazing event.

All of the characters are tragically human and simultaneously completely devoid of expressive human emotion.

An alien shows up and blows everyone’s mind, but not so much that it changes the trajectory of anyone but a single boy’s life or mind.

Life is weird and complicated.

Review

I can honestly say that Asteroid City is exactly as worthwhile, fun, and interesting as any of Wes Anderson’s catalog of films. 

Sometimes it’s nice to feel the wind in your hair, and that’s exactly what I get when I start any Wes Anderson movie except for The Darjeeling Limited, which I hate without reason.

Asteroid City is a bombshell full of A-List actors, incredibly lit scenes, and emotionless emotion. 

It has fun dialog and lots of interesting eye candy to keep you entertained. 

In-fact, Asteroid City understands the medium of film so well that it’s almost perfect in it’s execution. That is to say, a film is meant to be interesting to look at, with dialog and concepts to stir the mind, and with characters who evoke impressive emotion within the watcher. 

I will say that some of the dialog is delivered so quickly, and with so little difference in inflection that I often found myself not knowing what had just been said.

Also, it’s hard to care too much about some of the main characters for a couple of reasons. 

Firstly, it’s divulged that the story of Asteroid City is a play that is being written by another main character. This level of abstraction seemed overly complicated and unnecessary to the story. The same effect could be achieved with some inner monologue, in my opinion.

Second is the story is spread among so many characters that few receive enough screen time individually to make me care too much about any of them.

These are minor sins in an otherwise fun and funny exploration of the human condition by the world’s most symmetrical film director.

Score

9/10