Asteroid City (2023) Review

the rating: ****

the story: Young achievers are unexpectedly at the heart of an unlikely alien encounter.

the review: So I've really gotten into Wes Anderson, finally, and predictably it's just when critics have gotten over him.  I mean, they've been over him for at least a decade, and I didn't get into him, really, until a few years ago, so it's not that surprising.  Of course I had to see Asteroid City.  Of course it was likely that I would enjoy it.  I expected to like it more, but I definitely liked it.  The appearances of Tom Hanks and Steve Carell actually created a kind of uncanny valley, that breaks the typical mold of total control on Anderson's part.  Most actors who appear in his films fit the mold perfectly; Hanks can't help but be Hanks, and the same is true of Carell.  Everyone else (Owen Wilson is atypically absent, but Jason Schwartzman, another longtime collaborator, is back in a starring role) very much fits in nicely.

"You can't wake up if you don't go to sleep."

That's how the movie ends.  This is not a spoiler.  Just as Amsterdam ends with each of the principle characters reciting the eponymous city name to the audience, and Cradle Will Rock builds to the climactic moment from the 1937 play it's built around, Asteroid City concludes with the cast of stage actors reciting this line.  How much you appreciate the movie is likely tied to how much thought you put into it.  The movie preceding it plays out along two separate tracks: one is a presentation of a play, and the other as if the play were happening in reality and not on a stage.  Schwartzman's character pulls himself out of the play when he struggles to understand why his character chooses to burn his hand on a grill, and so clearly Anderson's intent is for his audience to figure out his intent, too.

"You can't wake up if you don't go to sleep."  There will be plenty of speculation about it for those interested, and so maybe this review isn't really the place for it, but the story pretty happily busies itself with the story of Schwartzman's character in the story trying to have an honest reckoning with himself and his young family, something he's been avoiding for the past few weeks.  Eventually an alien shows up (an absolutely perfect moment, a perfect marriage of Anderson's best live action and stop-motion instincts).  Around all this, as Anderson movies tend to go, a niche community (well, in this case, two) is explored, although it's not really the point, but how the community(s) reacts to circumstances.  

Me, I'd choose, if forced, to interpret the point of Asteroid City to warn against comforting complacency, that in order to make progress you have to challenge yourself.  But this isn't possible unless you're first willing to admit your complacency.

At any rate, Hanks and Carell are the signifiers that although this acts and behaves like a typical Anderson movie, it really isn't.  He is very obviously trying to make a point.  It's very possible this will raise Asteroid City's value for me, later, when I will have more fully digested the results.  But it's certainly another excellent effort on his part.