Asteroid City: NZIFF Review

Esoteric director Wes Anderson's latest movie may feel like a letdown for those looking for quirk and whimsy.

But what emerges from this retro-future pastel colour dreamscape in Asteroid City is a meta-tale of connection and also of coping with loss amid the Junior Stargazer/ Space Cadet convention of an American desert town in the mid 1950s.

Wrangling an extraordinarily large cast, and not really gifting everyone with a decent amount of material (other than perhaps the bragging rights to say they've appeared), Jason Schwartzman plays Augie, a recently-widowed war photographer.

However, in true Anderson style, there's more to it than meets the eye. Towing around Tupperware containing the ashes, Augie hasn't told his kids of her demise, and also falls for Scarlett Johansson's Midge, a fellow visitor to the Asteroid City goings on.

Yet, there's another layer to proceedings, with Augie and his fellow Asteroid City compatriots nothing more than narrative constructs, from the mind of a playwright bashing away his latest creation, "an apocryphal fabrication" as Bryan Cranston's show host tells us.

As Anderson peels back and forth between a much too long list of characters and a plethora of locations (distinguished by colour palettes), he endangers a lot of the audience, who may feel there's simply whimsy at play here and not nearly enough depth to stop waves of apathy and irritation swarming in.

Most of Asteroid City feels a little too presented and constructed, with the result that viewers often find themselves aloof at the interlaced story layers, which never quite feel like they connect with any emotional heft. It's entirely possible there's a lot more going on below the surface, but given Anderson's tried to be ambitious with this lengthy cast, there are very few to latch on outside of Schwartzman and Johansson's double act.

It may be the most Wes Anderson of his films and it is beautifully presented, but scratch below the surface of this whimsical what's going on, and you may end up feeling unfortunately, this is perhaps one of the weakest of additions to his cinematic canon.