27th Jun2023

‘Asteroid City’ Review

by Alex Ginnelly

Stars: Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Jake Ryan, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Grace Edwards, Maya Hawke, Ruper Friend, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Liev Schreiber | Written by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola | Directed by Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson has always managed to conjure up so much joy and wonder in his films, from his early days to his most recent work. There’s always an element of childish imagination and wonder to his films that always helps you fall in love with the characters and the worlds. Beneath that style, however, has always been a maturity to his storytelling, a sense of heartache and subtle sadness that lingers through the colourful worlds. Asteroid City is like so much of Anderson’s previous work, it has the joy and wonder, it has the wonderful colour pallet and style we’ve come to expect and perhaps has deeper meanings and messages than in any of his previous work.

Asteroid City is a place and a play. The story starts in black and white where we follow playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) as he writes his latest onstage piece ‘Asteroid City’. What follows is a back-and-forth between the black-and-white world of the actors hired to be in the play and the world of the play itself. In a unique story-telling device we are plunged in and out of the world of ‘Asteroid City’ where we follow grieving father Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) who travels with his brainiac son and three daughters to the small rural ‘Asteroid City’. His son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) is set to compete in a junior stargazing event, along with a band of other genius children, accompanied by their parents. Of course, like all of Anderson’s films, the town is littered with a colourful display of unique and interesting characters, all played by a wonderful star-studded cast. The whole town then get stuck together for a week when their world is turned upside down by the arrival of an alien from the stars.

The plot gets all the right characters in the right places and traps them together for just enough time for us to have a whole load of fun and laughs with them, but in the end it’s the questions Anderson asks that stay with you. Asteroid City does something that hasn’t seemed to happen in a long time: it leaves us with unanswered questions but leaves them in such a tone that you wonder if they were ever even asked. Its ambiguity is softer than most, it touches the edges of ambiguity lighter than any of his other work and in the end makes you ask yourself the deeper questions. You ask yourself, like one of the actors asks his director, in the black and white of the stage behind the play, “What does it all mean?”. I think in the end it can mean anything you want it to mean. For me, one of the key themes is how art can’t be defined or summed up by any single person, how no single piece of it can be explained or summed up by one person’s point of view, and not everyone is going to get everything – but that doesn’t make it wrong or bad.

There are two principal characters in this film and they’re both played by Jason Schwartzman. The first is the actor Jones Hall, the actor who has got the role in the new play ‘Asteroid City’. The other character he plays is Augie Steenbeck, the character in the Asteroid City play (I know it can get confusing). Both roles he plays are no doubt his best. He achieves the balance between one character trying to understand not only your place and role in art, but in the universe – and the other character’s desire for closure and connection, and the feeling of not wanting to be alone in the universe. It’s a feeling many characters share including Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson). The two characters find each other and there’s a wonderful connection between them that never feels forced or unnatural despite the nature of their circumstances.

It has all the style Wes Anderson has come to be known for, even gaining TikTok fame in the last few months. More than the style though, Asteroid City is a film that makes you think. Think about art, grief, the universe and the meaning of it all. It’s full of characters that need to be seen and to be loved no matter how smart or talented they might be, as they’re all desperate for something. It’s a beautiful, touching film that is so much more than just the Anderson style.

***** 5/5

Asteroid City is in cinemas now.

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