Flasz On Film

Wes Anderson’s work is like a banana. At first it was green, starchy and rough, then it ripened a bit and became softer and developed a bit of its own flavour. Then, its colour deepened, and it became sweeter. And then… all of a sudden… spots appeared followed by mushy blotches on its flesh. And then finally, it became so ripe it was only good to make banana bread with. And that’s fine because banana bread can be tasty and there’s definitely a sizeable demographic of people who wouldn’t object to some banana bread every now and then.  

However, eventually every banana outripens its usefulness. It goes brown, stinky and rotten and it truly belongs in the bin. And chances are, when you decide to pick it up and throw it away, it will leak sticky fluid right onto your hands and then you will immediately discover that it had spread its banana rot onto other unsuspecting pieces of fruit in the bowl, thus rendering them almost completely inedible by association.  

Asteroid City is one such banana. Directed by Wes Anderson and written by him from a story he co-created with his longtime collaborator Roman Coppola, this movie stars – take a deep breath, Jakub – Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Live Schreiber, Hope Davis, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Matt Dillon, Steve Carrell, Margot Robbie, many other people – gasp for air – and Jeff Goldblum, because if you cast half of Hollywood in your movies, you might as well get Jeff Goldblum to come over, he’s always fun. And at this point I want you to close your eyes – figuratively, because you are reading and if you close your eyes for real, you won’t be able to read my prompts – and imagine what would a Wes Anderson film look like if you had access to his brain and purposefully turned the gain knob all the way to eleven and pushed the saturation slider all the way to the right. That’s Asteroid City.  

It is at this point a typical story you’d come to expect from Wes Anderson. Divided (also with the use of changing aspect ratios) into an outer story commenting on the story proper as though it were a play, and an inner story about a recently widowed father who also happens to be a war photographer, as indicated by the fact he carries a camera around his neck and wears some kind of fatigues (that’s Schwartzman), travelling with his four children to a convention for young astronomers, which (I believe) takes place in the titular Asteroid City, a small town surrounding a massive crater with a tiny asteroid in the middle, all on the periphery of a US nuclear testing site. Naturally, other players join the picture, and everything culminates with a stargazing evening when they are visited upon by an alien. I think.  

And that’s not even the half of it because in an expectedly “wesandersonesque” fashion the movie becomes denser and denser as it goes along, as though it was in competition with Anderson’s previous movies. Therefore, there is a love intrigue somewhere in there too, a guy with a death ray, a military quarantine, a father attempting to grieve without knowing how to express emotions, a disappointed father-in-law, loads of kids, a nerdy astronomer, fourth wall-breaking chants and a musical number. Because, again, why not.  

I am sure, as far as the filmmaker is concerned, Asteroid City has a deeply humanist core where it hides an immensely personal story about grief, an awkward exploration of love, curiosity and even perhaps a few choice self-aware comments relating to the nature of cinema. Unfortunately, they are all lathered with layer upon layer of Anderson’s characteristic iconography, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea. In fact, even as far as Anderson’s filmography goes, this movie doesn’t quite seek new avenues of exploration within the framework of his own comfort zone. It just deepens the trench this filmmaker is in and at this point he is so deep, proximity to Earth’s core is becoming a concern.  

Sure, if this is your first rodeo with Wes Anderson, you probably might enjoy the style, the iconography, the diorama-esque staging, the symmetry, the business of the operation and the quirky obsession with detail. But – coming back to my banana analogy – you will get the same (if not better) level of appreciation and enjoyment out of The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is just as busy, just as quirky and idiosyncratic and it is funny, too. It’s a ripe banana. Soft and sweet.  

Asteroid City, on the other hand, is inedible. Borderline clinically dangerous. And that’s because it is almost impossible to get anything out of this experience, which is just crammed with Anderson’s quirks and unchecked ideas, as though the word “moderation” did not exist in his vernacular. In consequence of the filmmaker’s seemingly unrestrained approach to indulging his now well tattered idiosyncrasies, the movie nullifies any possibility to extract anything emotionally articulated out of this circus show and gleefully settles for performative gallivanting instead. The experience of watching this movie is perhaps akin to watching a five-year-old kid playing a game he invented for himself without understanding what the hell is going on. People just recite predictably quirky lines to one another, gesticulate in a way I have seen a hundred times before and happily egg on the filmmaker behind the camera, as though they wagered money on how far up his own backside they’d be able to indulge him.  

Seriously, Asteroid City is exactly what it says on the tin: a Wes Anderson film. Only more so. To put it in perspective, it makes The French Dispatch look subtle. In fact, it is probably what you’d end up watching if you asked an AI engine to render a remake of Nope in the style of Wes Anderson. And it would suffer from exactly what people accuse AI-generated art – lack of communicable emotion, humanity or character. It is nothing more than a festival of pompous posturing that will add absolute bupkis to your life experience on this planet, unless you are into rotten bananas, AI-generated dioramas, and watching socially awkward kids play with their toys. The rest of you need not apply. You can go about your day not knowing Asteroid City exists and you’ll be happier. Because as far as I’m concerned – to paraphrase a classic line from that time Christian Bale lost his shizzle on tape – Wes Anderson and I, we are done professionally. I think I am ready to boycott anything and everything this man comes up with next, because I like my bananas ripe. And what Wes Anderson has in his fruit bowl is making my stomach churn.