Asteroid City

Dir: Wes Anderson

Writers: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeffrey Wright, Grace Edwards, Jake Ryan, Maya Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon, Tilda Swinton and many others, with Jeff Goldblum as the alien and Jarvis Cocker as a cowboy

USA, 2023, 105 mins

Watched by Sarah at the Watershed 

For various reasons I haven’t had the opportunity to go to the cinema for three or four months; what better film to go and see after such a long time away than Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City with its joyful celebration of all things filmic: stars, story-telling, special effects, song.

The year is 1955 and we’re in Asteroid City in the Arizona desert, with a single petrol pump, an almost empty diner, a motel, a crater formed by an asteroid however many years ago, and atomic bombs being tested by the US military just over the horizon. Except – naturally, this being Wes Anderson – we’re not. We begin (in a prologue) with a documentary (black and white) about the writing and staging of a play. Asteroid City is the glorious technicolour film – or possibly dream – of that play. Sets behind sets, or stories within stories; worlds within worlds.

   Into the no-horse but one-roadrunner town of Asteroid City, come five teenage nominees for the Junior Stargazers Award – surely never has a group of five nerds been portrayed so affectionately (except perhaps in a previous Wes Anderson film) – and their assorted parents and siblings. These include movie star Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), recently widowed war photographer Augie Steenkamp (Jason Schwartzman), and three very young witches (his daughters). Also present is a primary school class and their (rigidly Christian but very lovely) teacher, and five singing cowboys. The sky is preternaturally blue, the desert as sandy and cactus-studded as you could desire, Midge Campbell’s lipstick is to die for.

   What happens? Shenanigans. And an alien.

   It is all hilarious, and stylish. And, also, deep down (or do I mean on the surface?), profoundly serious about the American dream.

If I had my time again I would really like to be an actor in a Wes Anderson movie. They must have such huge fun. But I guess I’ll have to settle for the next best thing: watching other people having huge fun in a Wes Anderson movie.