#31: Asteroid City (2023) (dir. Wes Anderson)

There will be other Anderson films to come but somehow this has crept into my top five favorites and it's one that I keep thinking about more and more. If you've seen it, comment with your takes too!

I couldn’t easily pinpoint precisely why my brain was immediately thinking of two of my favorite writers while watching Asteroid City. At a certain point, I kept thinking that maybe Wes Anderson is heading more towards Charlie Kaufman and Eugène Ionesco territory now which makes me giddy. In a sense, they’re all about deconstruction in hopes of making sense of why they’re drawn to the act of creation. Kaufman’s script for Adaptation is pretty much this idea to the point where a character outwardly defines the act of writing as “solipsistic” especially when choosing to include yourself directly in the script. But the director’s vision and personality are always going to be a part of the process, it’s hard to avoid that. Does it have a direct effect on the actors, the crew and then the audience?

I understand why so many can’t connect with Anderson at all as of late. The reviews for The French Dispatch were so incredibly divisive, it was a little baffling to watch even some of his fans turn into detractors. Is it because he’s less interested in the humans being human and perhaps drawn to an existentialist absurdity to a degree? He may be asking big questions here, but they’re encased by his trademark sardonic touch to where the comedy or drama doesn’t always feel apparent.

The fan base is likely not going to change with his latest, especially since Anderson continues the Russian nesting doll approach that creates layer after layer after layer to where even the narrator questions where he’s supposed to be at one point. I’d go so far as to say that a moment in which characters shout directly to the camera recalls some of the radical choices Jean Luc-Godard would make where characters would even question if they’re living in film or reality.

“Soaking up the “clean light” of the desert sun, Robert Yeoman’s camera reveals most of these sights to us in the span of a single 360-degree swivel, a flex that underlines Anderson’s absolute command over the film’s Chinchón set where his characters will soon be trapped against their will, thus forcing them to surrender the delusion of control that has defined so many of Anderson’s characters over the course of his career. It’s maybe the most radical thing that has ever happened in one of his movies — the sort of transformative moment that A.I. could never dream up no matter how much data it ingested — and it spins “Asteroid City” in a cosmic new direction. What until then was just another immaculate Wes Anderson film suddenly becomes one of a kind.” - David Erlich

I found the framing device to be frustrating and intriguing as the film went along. I’d get caught up in the city itself and then we’d cut away to the construction of the play or the TV show that documents the making of the play. After a while though, I started to accept the momentum. This ultimately becomes a personal story that comments on the lockdown we experienced as a country but also, determinist themes that the creator is likely wrestling with. There’s a feeling of inevitable randomness - aliens land, people break into song, wives pass away and sometimes we burn ourselves just to feel the pain of being alive. I don’t know if finding an answer to something we don’t understand is the point. We just have to accept the uncertainty. “You can’t stop what’s coming.”

In other words, there is a lot of substance to accompany that style that has been reduced to Tik-Tok memes and A.I-spewed interpolation. He's potentially hinting at the importance of personal experience and responsibility as a parent but in a more abstract manner which many can find difficult to parse. But this is also him erupting into weird whimsy that somehow made it easier for me to process than his last film (maybe The French Dispatch had too many ideas to the point of overkill). Narratively, he is taking risks to the point of even preaching to the audience with his actors late in the film speaking a mantra to the camera which I alluded to. I’ll get to that more in a minute.

There is a sense of controlled confidence accompanied by a willingness to veer into detours in Asteroid City. It felt like Wes Anderson embracing Wes Anderson the writer with a lot on his mind - naysayers be damned. It’s kind of a shame to experience a lot of negative responses but I think that potentially comes from a level of expectation especially when you’ve assembled this kind of cast. You expect everyone to each have a quote-worthy line or equal screen time to some degree because there are such big names attached. That being said, it’s also surprising to hear that the monotone, rhythmic delivery of dialogue is considered groan-inducing now. Mamet made a whole career out of that but that’s beside the point. A lot of the characters here are lost in grief and a lack of connection in the world. Which is why characters like a photographer and an actress seek to reinterpret their lives through their art. Perhaps Wes is grappling with this.

It makes me think of a recent conversation I had - I prefer to escape reality as opposed to being constantly reminded of the cruel world that exists outside. Not just the random difficulties that prevail, but the fact that there is a lack of random absurdity - the kind I can find in film or the arts in general. There are strict rules to reality defined by physics, nature and law, whereas movies and dreams sometimes exist freely. They change unexpectedly at a moment’s notice. An alien can land, an animated road runner could pop up. With life, I’m always asking, “am I doing it right” which happens to Jason Schwartzman’s character (and actor) at a pivotal point. Adrien Brody, as the play director, says, “just keep telling the story.”

I think that moment followed by the balcony scene followed by Willem Dafoe (essentially playing Lee Strasberg) instructing the cast to induce a meditative, mindful dream state are examples of what makes Anderson’s recent output so introspective and thought-provoking. We are almost falling asleep (like a trance - not because we’re tired) when watching a film. It’s an altered state; a fabricated reality; a metaverse. Then we have to wake up to the real world. It’s out there. There’s no avoiding it. *sigh*

“The two moments that 'unlocked' ASTEROID CITY for me:

1. Post-alien encounter, Maya Hawke's teacher tries to reassure her young students that everything is... fine? "Some of our information about the solar system may no longer be completely accurate… Anyway, there’s still only nine planets in the solar system, as far as we know." To which, a young boy named Billy retorts: "Except now there’s an alien!" 12 hours ago, they were all on solid ground. They understood – or thought they understood – the rules of the universe and their place in it. Now? Everything is up for grabs. Such a disconcerting revelation is not unlike the shock of losing a loved one, as Augie and the Steenbeck children – and Max Fischer and so many other Anderson characters – have. What do we tether ourselves to amidst all this chaos and uncertainty?

2. The answer might just lie in director Schubert Green's (Adrien Brody) advice to Jones Hall (Jason Schwartzman), an actor struggling to make sense of the play in which he's been cast: “Just keep telling the story.” - Adam Kempenaar

Oddly enough, that entire stretch in which the actor playing Auggie questions his actions doesn’t involve the town of Asteroid City. Still, there is so much to appreciate about every facet of this visual feast. As always, the production and set design itself is a marvel which we already knew going in. It’s a key strength of Anderson’s. There are so many characters, it’s hard to sum up this world in a way that does recall something like The Grand Budapest Hotel (another movie that’s telling a story within a story). This film sees Anderson’s style on full display, boasting some of his most impressive cinematography in the desert landscape accompanied by “the world is all a stage” theatricality on an intimate level. I think he’s interested in understanding the actor’s place on that stage and exploring what kind of “truths” can arise from performance and writing/directing a performance. Maybe as he’s aging, he’s wondering about the lasting effects of art especially the ones he’s in charge of putting out into the world.

Working with his regular collaborators, DP Robert Yeoman and set designer Adam Stockhausen, this team has once again crafted a colorful and wholly unique world that is dazzling to look at. He continues to push his aesthetic forward in unique ways, this time introducing science-fiction elements into his repertoire and using stop motion to playfully portray extraterrestrial life. There’s even a random hoedown of sorts that made me smile harder than anything has in quite a while including an eerie Twilight Zone-esque final moment involving an audience looking through a TV set. Again, layers of reality featuring an audience questioning what they’re seeing. The TV audience looking in on the film, much like we are the audience looking at the screen. 

Much of the pleasure here comes from the perfectly calibrated and very deadpan performances from his actors, even those in the minor parts that we often wish we could see more of. The film follows a loose narrative that is strung together through a series of recurring vignettes. It follows a quirky cast of characters attending a Junior Stargazing convention in a rural American desert town that is suddenly disrupted by the strange appearance of an extraterrestrial being. Quarantine occurs and everyone sort of sits with who they are and why they’re there. It is a downright Sartre-esque salute to where even a character in the moment can’t figure out why they are drawn to do something harmful. Is it because they can’t handle being “real” and sitting with a particular emotional state - both the actor and the character? Where does one end and the other begin?

Schwartzman and Johansson as the photographer and the actress are given the most to do. I think they do stellar work here especially in the scenes where they simply talk to one another through windows, seeking to break away the artifice while embracing it at the same time. Even the theater audience was a little stunned at the sight of Johansson potentially being dead only to discover that it’s an act. That seems to be where Wes’ mind is at: questioning the intention and learning that maybe the only way to function is through the art of storytelling. 

Rupert Friend excels in a cameo as a singing cowboy with a nice line in folksy, homespun wisdom. Jeffrey Wright is very funny as the gruff military commander who locks down the town and has a penchant for multiple microphones when delivering a speech. There’s even a surprise to the cast that will please fans of Barbie (or infuriate them since she’s only in it for one scene and even explains why to some degree). That moment is quite moving - Anderson always sneaks in something there that gets to me. There’s also a marquee in the background for another show across the street that has the word “narcissist” in the title. That is not an accident. Wes is trying to understand if all of this tendency to tell a story is the result of narcissism. In the end, it doesn’t matter. He’s just telling the story even if he doesn’t entirely know where it’s going. 

It’s a bit akin to Barton Fink in a way - another dark, existentialist movie about the ramifications of isolation and trying to write your way out all while going a little bit crazy. Perhaps Wes Anderson struggled to tell this story and devised this existentialist bent to showcase how we get lost inside the theatricality. It’s not unlike the kind of questions that someone like Charlie Kaufman would ask either in interviews or in the films he’s making. Why am I here? What am I doing? What does this mean? Why an alien? Is it almost an exercise in futility in trying to ascribe meaning in everything? 

Anderson has said the COVID-19 pandemic had a direct influence on this feature. In the film, the characters get quarantined and behave nastily toward each other for a bit. Sounds a bit familiar in our politically divided times. In a short time, they go from having confidence in their understanding of the universe to being completely lost. Because so many characters exhibit neurodivergent behaviors, we see that loneliness or depression manifests in ways that might not be common to most. We lose touch with our true selves in a sense. Perhaps we have to get lost in order to be found.

It’s as if Wes is working with a lot of feelings that are almost too big to be contained in one world, so he has to create two others - one with a narrator, the other with the playwright/director/cast and the actual Asteroid City universe that we experience as the audience. Keep an eye out for my favorite scene in which Auggie (Schwartzman) breaks character and exists away from the scene into the B&W behind-the-scenes world of the play. There is a seated audience in the background watching this unfold which is what we’re doing.

“Everything is connected but nothing is working” feels like a key line even if it’s treated as a throwaway in Asteroid City. The science projects, the vending machines, the photographs, the rehearsals of the script by Midge Campbell - there’s a feeling that it’s all there but is it working its magic on both the actors and the audience? In regard to that line, I also thought of the Internet, technology and just the overall behavior of human beings as of late. I thought of how during Covid, we were all feeling the same way, but we couldn’t actually work together in the right ways. We took too many things personally because it all felt like an attack (maybe from an otherworldly presence). After all, didn’t the virus feel like an alien presence that suddenly landed on us? Even the decision to take selfie photos of our vaccine cards felt like a whole other world (though yes, I did it, too).

We are also all truly connected into immersive alternate worlds of our design - whether it’s our home, our media, the stories we’re telling (they are likely not 100% accurate). I think Wes is questioning that while celebrating it by the end. In some ways, this is a joyful, invigorating film. A step in a new direction from one of our best writer/directors. There’s no doubt it will also be mystifying for many. It is every bit as layered as Anderson’s best work, while still managing to tug hard on the heartstrings at times especially when it comes to the children handling their mother’s ashes. Do I wish more of the supporting characters were as fleshed out as Midge and Auggie? Perhaps, especially when you have an actor like Tom Hanks on board here. How come he didn’t get to yell out, “you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep” like the others did?

In the end, the film is about accepting that we have little to no control over life so we look to telling stories (whether fictional or not) as a way to harness control. We have to form our own truth to some degree and telling a story, whether through a play, a show, a podcast, or a film is a way of cementing our experiences. Why else are we creators and dreamers? But are we doing it right? Are we being honest? Why do we hurt ourselves (self-harm comes up at one point). This might be a surprising turn for a director like Anderson, who is meticulous, whimsical and composed in how his movies look. He seems to really feel assured but this feels like someone who is a bit unsure and somehow I found that experience to be exciting. 

I don’t think he will ever top Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums but I think I’m even more thrilled for this new phase of Anderson because maybe he is getting even more introspective about mortality as time marches on. Asteroid City is one of his more daring, deepest films to date and I am sure it’ll only continue to evolve in my mind as I age. I hope Wes continues to ask the more meaningful questions even if there are no clear answers. The fact that he’s curious and inquisitive is enough for me and this film is one of his best in quite a while. I’m glad it’s here in 2023 and already has become a personal favorite.