Take Me Back To…Asteroid City
where the colours are saturation hued, the sundaes have a cherry on top and the child genii and scientists are gathering for close encounters of the third kind…
Full Wes Anderson storytelling mode here in 1950s mid-West America; a tiny desert town plays host to a Junior Scientist/Space Cadet Convention, in which they compete and model their latest inventions. Lasers, adverts on the Moon and singing cowboys — oh my!
We’re also set in a movie within a movie as the writer creates his characters and setting, then we watch it. Only it appears that the writer passes away before the end so how will it all end…At points too characters step outside of the script — trying to understand who they are, what their meaning is and what it’s all about.
There is a father, a war photographer, with four cosmologically children — his son has come to the convention, his three small girls are clearing trying to take over the world as only small girls can — and deeply channelling the witches/good fairies from Disney’s Cinderella movie. Furthermore, also in town is an actress deeply into her method acting (sort of Marilyn Monroe-esque and yet not) with her daughter who is also there for the convention. There are singing cowboys who can teach (especially good on alien tolerance and integration), a school teacher with a class in tow desperately trying to create lesson plans that include alien visitors and who loves a romantic dance, and Tom Hanks as a curmudgeonly grandfather pulled in to pick up the mess of his bereaved son-in-law (who hasn’t told his family that their mother is dead yet). There is a motor mechanic who encounters third kind experiences with exploding engines.
Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Rupert Friend and Maya Hawke clearly having a ball as they play against type. Willem Defoe, Margot Robbie and Jeffrey Wright are in there too! Plus Tom Hanks in twinkly exasperation. I do love the smooth owner of the complex who clearly shouldn’t be trusted with electricity too — wow, who is Steve Carrell! More surface in its emotions than previously, it is a bit shallower in content and tone, but no more enjoyable for that. There is a deeper dive into emotions when the war photographer is encouraged to use his grief in reading a playscript — it is a moving moment. No-one too is cliched — the actress acknowledges that she isn’t a great mother but tries to do her best; her daughter doesn’t hate her famous mother — but wants her to do more radio work. One of the student scientists enjoys playing a game that her schoolmates wouldn’t — although it could go on for a long time because they can all remember everything. I also love the parents fighting their way out of their military confinement with lasers! (or using them for clay pigeon shooting). Yes of course there’s a jet pack!
Like Marmite, you can either love or loathe it. The colours pop. There is a host of characters, with some cultural clashes and racism hinted at. We even see the actress playing the dead mother of the family whose scenes got cut interacting with other actors on balconies. There is an alien, who steals an asteroid (or borrows), then returns it. Whilst the film is more surface than his previous two recent movies, it plays with faith, grief, romance, loss, Communist threat, atomic power, the Space Race, alien invasion films and wild camera angles without really telling us what it all means. All you need is love essentially — whether brainiac, famous actress, astronomer, singing cowboy or school ma’am. And who cannot love a dancing Roadrunner going ‘meep meep’ or Jeffrey Wright as a General.
