by Chris Bakker, Contributing Writer
Before we get into the long and short of it, I suppose we should get into the extremely short of it. Asteroid City is a Wes Anderson movie. If you’ve seen his work before, you know exactly what that means, more or less. In the case of Asteroid City, it’s as good a description as any, and as good of a measurement as any, so consider whether or not you might enjoy your time with it.
So naturally, Asteroid City looks just about how you’d expect a Wes Anderson movie to look. Still frames with pans and dollies that shift the viewer’s eye, and plenty of frames within the frame, and very precise set decoration and blocking — and of course the vibrant color palette. It’s also just about as quirky as you’d expect from an Anderson film, with plenty of dry and sometimes awkward humor. The man does what he is good at, and that can’t be taken away from him.
This one, though, I do have to admit I struggled with. It is framed through the preparation for the run of a theater production of a play written by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton). The characters within the titular Asteroid City are played by actors within the movie, creating an additional layer through which the movie explores its themes. Unfortunately, the segments where we’re pulled out of the main situation of the film to be reminded of the framing device are frustrating to me. They are usually funny, but they are distracting in a way that I did not find them actually helping in building on the themes. As a result, it took a long time for the movie to really grab me. It announces its acts — and even some of its scenes — in title cards, and with the first act taking up just about half of the movie, I found myself not fully engaged until just a little while before the third act started. That’s quite a bit too long to be frustrated with the framing of the film.
When it does manage to dig its teeth into the themes of uncertainty about the future, and an understanding of purpose in the present, it really sings, but those moments are too few and far between early on, when it hops between characters and conversations seemingly on a whim. It’s not quite a set of slice-of-life vignettes, either; the conversations often overlap, making it difficult to parse what’s actually important or not. The way it’s shot and performed makes everything seem like it’s completely purposeful, but it is difficult to find that purpose early on.
That said, Asteroid City is a wonderfully performed movie — which almost goes without saying with a cast this strong. There are multiple standouts, but most appearances are also much too short to accurately rate. Jason Schwartzman is an obvious Wes Anderson staple, but newcomer Tom Hanks as his father-in-law proves that he still has some new tricks in him at this stage of his career. He slides into the stylings of an Anderson movie seamlessly. The same goes for Jake Ryan, whose character Woodrow may be my favorite. The spread is simply so wide, though, that while everybody seems to at least get their moment, the whole of it did not connect with me in the way that I really wanted it to.
My connection to Wes Anderson is limited to my adoration of The Grand Budapest Hotel, and those heights definitely are not reached by this film — but unlike with Budapest, which is as delightful every time as it was the first, I do have a feeling that Asteroid City might benefit greatly from being watched again with the knowledge of where it goes. For now, though, that means I’m leaving it slightly disappointed, but still entertained.
Score: 7/10
Asteroid City is currently playing in theaters
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