Asteroid City

Asteroid City was released this week and Wes Anderson has created yet another masterpiece. With his signature style he manages to create an original and captivating story that uses humor and heart to keep the audience entertained. Now I am a huge Wes Anderson fan who firmly believes that his entire filmography is 10/10. No misses at all.

Let's start with the fact that “Asteroid City” is a film about the production of a play. Now my favorite scene was right towards the end when our main character questions what the play is about. As an actor we think we need to know every detail because we are supposed to convey some kind of message or emotion to the audience. However in this scene the director tells him that he’s doing everything right and it really doesn’t matter if he knows what the play is about. I love this because audiences experience art differently and most art is up for interpretation. The people creating the art can have their own interpretation but it isn’t necessary for the audience to feel something. And this movie definitely makes you feel something.

Another thing I love about this movie as a whole is something that is not unique to Wes Anderson, the Cohen brothers do it quite often as well, is the emotional neutrality. Normally when we watch a movie, tv show, or play we judge the acting based on the range of emotions shown and how they’re portrayed. But with a film like this, big emotions are shown in a very subtle way. I would argue that because one of the plot points of the film is the main character losing his wife, and his kids losing their mother that the even emotional tone is exactly how the characters would be feeling. The numbness portrayed is very much how grief feels.

I also want to say that the cast was absolutely phenomenal. The three little girls are obscenely adorable and were breaking my heart the whole time. I’m not sure why not having a mom is a plot point in so so many stories but I lost my mom when I was young and it's like watching every movie that involves that storyline is “at” me. They had several lines of dialogue that had me in tears. The little girls had very little screen time but they spent pretty much all of it not sure why their mom isn’t coming back. They are sweet and adorable and kind of the emotional heart of the movie for me personally.

And of course we can’t talk about a Wes Anderson movie without talking about the color palette and aesthetic. Anderson has this way of bringing a film together with a unique color palette and the thing that I love about this is it makes the world's he creates far more immersive and more removed from the reality we actually live in. It also makes for more practical sets and I will always love that more than screens. He also has incredible set designers and dressers that use the size of props to help round out the worlds he creates. My favorite example of that in this movie is in Scarlet Johansson's characters’ bathroom there is just a massive Chanel perfume bottle and it's excellent.

Overall I really loved “Asteroid City”, Wes Anderson continues to be a genius, the cast is absolutely incredible and the story is beautiful and allows the audience to fill in the blanks however they feel. The movie gets a 10/10 from me and so far it is the best movie of the year.