Following a writer on his world famous fictional play about a grieving father who travels with his tech-obsessed family to small rural Asteroid City to compete in a junior stargazing event, only to have his world view disrupted forever.

‘Asteroid City’ is Wes Anderson’s 11th movie, and like every Wes Anderson movie, it has all the hallmarks of a Wes Anderson movie. Set at a Junior Stargazer’s convention in the middle of a desert that is interrupted by some strange goings on, it follows an ensemble cast who all find themselves converging on this town and being forced to stay there for longer than they had anticipated. Even by Anderson standards this is an extensively stacked cast, with regulars such as Jason Schwartzman and Jeffrey Wright being joined by newcomers like Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson (in person at least, after voicing a character in ‘Isle of Dogs’).

‘Asteroid City’ does mark Anderson’s first foray into the realm of science fiction, albeit in his own idiosyncratic way with the setup used as a framing device to explore the same themes around growing up, grief and dysfunctional families that he’s touched on in many of his films. The sunny desert setting is perfect for the bright colour palette Anderson likes to use (recalling ‘Moonrise Kingdom’) and this is a gorgeous film to look at it, with Anderson’s trademark attention to detail really shining through. There are too many characters to describe them all, but if you had to single out a couple it’d be Schwartzman and Johansson’s characters, both of whom are parents to children involved in the convention and who bond over their own problems. I also thought this was one of his funniest films – perhaps not quite ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, but not far below.

The setup is perhaps where I struggled the most with ‘Asteroid City’, in that (bare with me!) ‘Asteroid City’ is a fictional play (within the movie), with the framing device of a TV host (Bryan Cranston) introducing a televised production (which is the movie we’re seeing) of the play. To add further complexity, we also see the creation of the play interspersed between the ‘main’ event of the play itself, with Edward Norton’s playwright developing the story with the help of a local acting school, who subsequently play the main roles in the play. It’s a new direction for Anderson and there are some strong moments mined from this peek behind the curtains to see what drives the character motivations (and in a meta way, what drives Anderson’s filmmaking process as well), but I also found elements of it a diversion from the main story and it took me a bit of time to get to grips with it.

‘Asteroid City’ is probably not going to attract many new fans to the weird and wonderful world of Wes Anderson movies, but for those who like his work and are familiar with his stylings, ‘Asteroid City’ will hit the spot.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Wes Anderson

Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan and Jeff Goldblum

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt14230388/