Things to do in the desert when you’re quarantined.

Somewhere behind a typewriter, as explained by out host (Bryan Cranston), playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) bangs out his newest… never mind, that’s boring, moving along. Welcome to Asteroid City, a tourist trap location centered on a basketball-sized meteor that landed thousands of years ago and the current site of an annual government-sponsored “Junior Stargazer” convention. Former war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) is on his way to drop off his son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and three wonderfully creepy daughters with their grandpa Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks), allowing his son the opportunity to enter the science competition portion of the event. What was meant to be an overnight stay turns into a mandated lock-down when an alien is witnessed stealing the asteroid in the middle of a celestial viewing. Nothing will ever be the same again… or will it?

With films featuring adult whimsy coupled with morose and melancholy, the work of writer/director Wes Anderson isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. His scenes are framed like shadow boxes in vanishing-point perspectives and too-perfect right angles with characters delivering deadpan monologues from a single mark, a literal interpretation of “All the world’s a stage.” Following the 2021 anthology The French Dispatch, a series of AI-rendered fictional remake videos have recently popped up on the internet spoofing Dune and Star Wars in Anderson’s signature style, hitting close enough to make one wonder if it wasn’t a clever bit of marketing. Set in the post-war 1950s, Asteroid City is a slice of mid-twentieth-century atomic-age Americana served up with all its capitalistic opportunities and paranoia on display, but will audiences turn out for a film about a stage play visualized as a movie where the character’s actors worry about their motivations within the story representing them?

Yes, you’re in a Wes Anderson film, but it feels like the director is not only in on the joke but willing to exploit it. Leaning into the stage presentation, the production looks as realistic as being fake can, as if original mid-century highway billboards advertising the future of America were brought to life no matter how absurd. The actors not only play their characters but also the actors playing their characters, visually separated by a monochromatic theater world vs. a vibrant Technicolor story world. At the risk of flagging this as an early awards contender, it tickles the right combination of theatrical drama and cinematic nostalgia without making any apologies for it. Rather than hammer down the dire elements in the story, Anderson’s lighthearted touch and deliberate artificiality makes Asteroid City his most approachable work to date… which may not sit well with his diehard fans.

The cast list also includes Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, Sophia Lillis, Maya Hawke, Jeffrey Wright, Steve Park, Steve Carell, Tilda Swinton, and more; there are no bit actors, just bit parts. From vending machine land ownership to a permanently closed on-ramp for a nonexistent highway, there is some absurdity of one form or another constantly on-screen when not being interrupted by any number of repeating sight gags. It’s as if Anderson won’t allow his script to linger on any point long enough to make it important because life is always interrupting, never mind pointing an accusing finger at government coverups, the lies adults inflict upon their children, or enduring a quarantine. At the same time, other scenes seem to go on forever after making their point, with tedium presumably the goal. It’s all the best intentions of the 2022 film White Noise but without the musical dance number during the credits.

It’s no secret the director keeps his preferred troupe of actors on speed-dial; Bill Murray was supposed to be in this one but dropped out due to illness, handing his part off to Steve Carell. Weighing the production down is the usual extra time spent following characters through the elaborate set pieces strictly to highlight the overthought 3-D film effect, but it is what it is. You can’t really have a Wes Anderson film without the Anderson-isms, can you? But seriously: the three daughters are a scream.

Asteroid City is rated PG-13 on appeal for brief graphic nudity, smoking, some suggestive material, and photos that always turn out.

Three skull recommendation out of four

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