Asteroid City

 

In the 1950s, a television host (Bryan Cranston) introduces an adaptation of the play Asteroid City by esteemed playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton). Set at a military science installation in the desert, the play is centered on a Junior Stargazer convention to honor the inventive wizardry of a group of teen geniuses. They are joined by their parents - the emotionally numb war photographer and recent widower Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), the famous yet guarded actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), and others – as well as June Douglas’s (Maya Hawke) elementary school class, singing cowboy Montana (Rupert Friend) and his band, the astronomer Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton), Augie’s disgruntled father-in-law Stanley (Tom Hanks), a motel manager (Steve Carell), and General Gibson (Jeffrey Wright), who is overseeing the convention. Another arrival (from the skies) upends the status quo for everyone. Meanwhile, amid scenes from the play, the playwright and lead actor foster a relationship while the director (Adrien Brody) loses one.

 

Wes Anderson’s latest film bears many of his trademarks: precocious yet alienated kids, nostalgia, a huge ensemble cast, an Alexandre Desplat score, and a distinctive visual style (the play scenes are in bright, highly saturated color while the frame story/interludes are in sharp black and white). To this, he adds hearty doses of retrofuturism, pandemic quarantine metaphors, and metatextual commentary on the process of creation. It is, like most of Anderson’s oeuvre, divisive (one person’s artistry is another’s puzzling pretension), and, truth be told, less than the sum of its parts, but for anyone with any appreciation for Anderson’s usual tricks, there is still a lot to like here.

 

For starters, the film handles its insanely talented cast well. Even the smaller roles are memorable and distinctive (a barely recognizable Carell fills in for a missing Bill Murray). These include all of the above plus Matt Dillon as a mechanic of questionable competence and Margot Robbie (barely recognizable as well) as an actress whose scene was cut. In some cases, the casting gleefully subverts expectations: Swinton, who so capably portrays an ice queen, is warm and encouraging as she bonds with the stargazers while the oft-genial Hanks gives Harrison Ford a run in the grumpiness department. The constant deadpanning is a source of humor (along with recurring visual puns like a never-ending police chase and a Looney Tunes-appropriate roadrunner), but though many characters are exaggerated in one way or another, those with the greatest presence also have the greatest complexity. Schwartzman plays Augie as enigmatically detached yet Augie’s actor Jones Hall in his usual anxious manner, trying desperately to find an “in” into the character. Johansson’s Midge, the subject of exploitation as well as adulation, is deeply unhappy despite her fame.

 

While the quirky characters and the striking aesthetics are enough to hold our attention, Asteroid City is narratively underbaked. The circumstances that bore it (COVID quarantine and its resulting detachment) left an imprint on the production, but the film never really rises to full-on satire. While the interlude scenes provide context for the audience, they also rob the play-within-the-movie of scenes that may potentially help it gel. Perhaps as an overcorrection, the cast awkwardly chants a mantra at the end. “You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep” isn’t an unworthy message though the delivery leaves something to be desired.

 

Asteroid City will not win over any Wes Anderson converts and may even test the patience of his fans, but it is worth seeing for the cast alone. It may not hold up to a lot of scrutiny, but then again, neither did the Atomic Age sci-fi that it artfully evokes.