‘I reckon that alien didn’t mean no harm…’
Allow me to indulge myself for a moment. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote about Wes Anderson’s most recent film before this one – The French Dispatch:
“The plot? I’ve absolutely no idea. At no point did I have the faintest idea what was going on. The plot seems to hang limp like a sheet over a ghost, in this case as an excuse to make every single frame look like a painting. And while there is no doubting this manipulation of mise-en-scene is an art form of itself of which Anderson is the master, you can’t base an entire feature film around visuals alone. No. There is no plot. Merely a string of voiceovers and title cards interspersed with smug characters espousing smug dialogue.“
And so it is again here. Everything I wrote about that film also applies to Asteroid City. Despite an incredible cast featuring but not limited to Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Ed Norton, Maya Hawke and Tom Hanks, this is, once again, a self-indulgent and boring mess. All of Anderson’s characters since The Grand Budapest Hotel are simply empty vessels. There isn’t a hint of humanity about any of them. And therefore, not only do I not like them, but even worse, I don’t care about them. Why would anyone?
Asteroid City is further proof, not that any was needed, that Anderson is finished. He hasn’t made a watchable film since The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014 and like many singular filmmakers of his generation (Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino) he has become a pastiche of himself. The slide into mediocrity and anonymity gathers pace.