“Asteroid City” Review
Scarlett Johannson (Left) and Jason Schwartzman lead a vast ensemble cast in Wes Anderson’s science-fiction film “Asteroid City.” In the film, Johannson and Schwartzman forge a connection as they experience humanity’s first contact with alien life.
I think that when a director has a unique style like Wes Anderson, there’s always the danger that he can become too reliant on the way he makes films. Instead of making a big splash with new characters and intriguing stories, he can just rely on the same symmetrical shots with pastel colors and deep focus because he knows we’ll eat it up. Gratefully, Anderson has yet to hit that point and it’s unlikely that he ever will with “Asteroid City” proving to be his best film since he released “The Grand Budapest Hotel” nearly ten years ago.
In 1955, a war photographer named Auggie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) is driving his teenaged son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and his three young daughters to the small desert town of Asteroid City where Woodrow, and other young brilliant minds, will be commended for their inventions. However, the Steenbecks’ car breaks down, stranding them in this now busy community full of strange characters, including a movie star named Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johannson) and her teenaged daughter Dinah (Grace Edwards), a fellow genius, who strike up romances with Auggie and Woodrow respectively. As if things couldn’t get crazier, this rambunctious cast find themselves faced with an existential crisis when they witness the arrival of an extraterrestrial in this desert hamlet.
While this film is full of A-list movie stars and they’re all superb in the film, it’s no question that the real star of “Asteroid City” is its writer/director Wes Anderson. His films have a unique quality to them in that you know they’re artificial and fake but they’re so intricate and quirky that you feel transported into a pastel, fantastical mirror of our own world. Here, Anderson displays the same kind of childlike fascination with UFOs that Steven Spielberg had when he made “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial.” This enthusiasm is what keeps you hooked into “Asteroid City.”
The film’s cast is full of Anderson regulars including Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody as well as newcomers to his world like Maya Hawke, Steve Carrell, Hong Chau and Tom Hanks. Even minor background roles are filled by people who’ve performed remarkably in Anderson’s past films like Bob Balaban and Tony Revolori. Regardless of who’s more prominent and who’s worked with this director before, everyone in this film is fantastic and delivers Anderson’s dry, humorous, trademark dialogue with effective zeal.
In particular, Jason Schwartzman delivers one of his best performances as Auggie who finds himself lost throughout the film. Not only is he stuck in this town and having to deal with a potential new romance and the fact that we’re not alone in the universe, but he’s also reeling from the death of his wife (Margot Robbie) and doesn’t quite know how to reach his kids, especially a genius like Woodrow.
Suffering from a similar dilemma (connecting with a child, not having a dead spouse) is Midge who connects with Auggie over their passion for their art and how nothing else makes sense outside of a film set or a war zone. While Johannson has worked with Anderson on his film “Isle of Dogs,” she really gets to shine with this role and does a marvelous job.
As for Jake Ryan and Grace Edwards, they are truly excellent as they know how to get across that they’re incredibly smart but they also still have the problems of teenagers like how to fit in or what to do about having a crush. Despite this dialogue sounding unreal (one of Anderson’s delightful quirks), it’s clear that Anderson still knows how to write children and their struggles as seen in “Rushmore,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Moonrise Kingdom.”
At this point in Anderson’s filmography, you typically know what to expect when you’re going into one of his films. The humor is going to be very dry and tongue-in-cheek, the sets are going to look a certain way, the characters will have very complicated backstories that are laid out in a simple way or very simple backstories laid out in a complicated way and it’s all going to somehow end with everyone learning a lesson of some kind. “Asteroid City” even has a similar plot about a fractured family coming together through amazing circumstances like “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and The Royal Tenenbaums.”
But just when you think that you’ve got this filmmaker all figured out, he throws some surprises your way, especially in how the film is structured. Without giving anything away, Anderson’s meta-humor is on full display and it had me bursting with laughter. So, if you love Anderson’s films, this one will appeal to you but you’re also going to find something fresh from him.
Through all of the spaceships, square dances and talk of theatre, I was entranced by how Anderson examines humanity’s reaction to aliens being proven real. The ending of “Asteroid City” might gain some criticism for not being as definitive. While things are somewhat resolved, it’s very open-ended and somewhat quiet. In a film about a town that experiences alien contact, I feel this is appropriate. Now that we know there's life out there beyond Earth, what do we do? Even if things return to normal, can they ever be the same with the knowledge that somewhere green men roam the stars in hexagonal ships?
While I love seeing aliens fighting superheroes in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” it’s sometimes nice to look at a story we’ve seen before from the viewpoint of a different kind of visionary. “Asteroid City” is certainly going to be unlike anything you’ll see this summer and that’s a good thing. Whether you like his films or not, you can’t deny that there is only one Wes Anderson and no one can ever replicate his crazy, whimsical and inspiring style of making movies.
