I think I could be in a Wes Anderson film. Hear me out. I’m no actor, but no director gets more out of a nothing performance than Wes Anderson. In fact, that’s kind of his shtick – having a player deliberately stoneface while things go awry in the background. It’s essential to Wes Anderson comedy.
Police car chase/shootout going on … reaction: none
Military quarantine and lockdown … reaction: none
Scarlett Johansson (or, more likely Scarlett Johansson’s body double) takes her bathrobe off … reaction: none
Admittedly, I probably couldn’t handle the third without some sort of reaction, That’s why Jason Schwartzman is a professional, I suppose.
And yet, it occurs to me that so little of a Wes Anderson film involves acting/reacting; 90% of an Anderson film is elaborate art decoration. Heck, in the scene where Midge (Johansson) gets nude, it’s entirely possible Angus (Schwartzman) isn’t there at all. The scenes of the two interacting are shot of him/shot of her/shot of him/shot of her … you get the idea. The sideways interaction with the camera capturing them both at once exists, but it is practically an afterthought.
This is all a long way of saying I might be able to direct a Wes Anderson film as well … and I’m clearly not alone.
This particular Anderson is neither great nor especially inspired. Asteroid City is about the events in small southwestern American town in the atomic era when an alien comes out to play for, literally, about five seconds. Augie has become a recent widower, but is reluctant to tell his children. When he does so eventually, his four children show surprising aplomb (for comic effect, of course). The point of the deceased wife allows for three meh plotlines: the tepid romance between Augie and actress Midge, the plot acquisition of Augie’s father (Tom Hanks) and the three small girls burying mom’s Tupperware ashes. All of this is presented with a minimum of acting, tongue-in-cheek style.
The bigger plot is all have arrived at Asteroid City – some sort of Area 51 way station- for some sort of junior scientist contest sponsored by some sort of random military until, that is, when an alien shows up. And all of this is told through a complete fourth wall break. Our narrator, Bryan Cranston, tells us that everybody
here is an actor and we are simply seeing the product of a play written by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) … also an actor.
For me, the movie-within-a-play had two effects: 1) It told me the material wasn’t strong enough to exhibit on its own. And 2) It felt like Wes Anderson parodying Wes Anderson. Well, shoot, why not? Everybody else has. What this film really feels like is filler material on a well-respected podcast … something akin to “we like this show, but we can take-or-leave this particular episode”
Wes Anderson will always be entertaining; he puts too much thought into production design to pretend otherwise. Every Anderson scene is artwork first, story second. And while he will always entertain me, I feel a far distance removed from the consecutive perfect scores I gave to Moonrise Kingdom and Grand Budapest Hotel. Oh, Asteroid City is a Wes Anderson film all right, with the perfect transition of storyboard-to-camera cinematography, dialogue in which every character is the straight man, and the usual corral of Anderson stable hands. Unlike Moonrise, Budapest, Isle of Dogs, or any of a half-dozen other Wes Anderson films, Asteroid City is sadly weak outside the cinematography. I didn’t dislike it, but I sure don’t need to see it again.
An alien comes from way of out of the blue
To steal a small rock and then shoo
The laughter ain’t canned
Cuz the cast is dead-panned
Maybe the comedy happens at Area 52
Rated PG-13, 105 Minutes
Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Genre: Wes Anderson films are all of the genre “Wes Anderson”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Jason Schwartzman’s mother
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who enjoy, you know, acting
