Asteroid City

One of Hollywood's most eclectic and quirky filmmakers is that of Wes Anderson. Each and every one of his films have an odd uniqueness to them, and assuredly all are definitively original. But, while many other of his films, albeit odd, are incredibly written, "Asteroid City" simply fell apart attempting to find a film.

Following a writer, Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) on his world famous fictional play, about a grieving father who travels with his tech-obsessed family, including his son, Woodrow (Jake Ryan) to small rural Asteroid City in order to compete in a junior stargazing event, only to have his world view be disrupted forever. The star gazing event is a fellowship to bring students and their parents together, and while parents such as Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), Roger Cho (Stephen Park), J.J. Kellogg (Liev Shreiber) and Sandy Borden (Hope Davis) aren't necessarily tech savvy, they still obtained this eclectic connection with each other while being there. This is all told to us via a host (Bryan Cranston) explaining how this playwright, Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) came up with this idea for a story

Others to round out the cast are Tom Hanks as Stanley Zak, Jeffrey Wright as General Gibson, Grace Edwards as Dinah, Tilda Swinton as Dr. Hickenlooper, Adrien Brody as Schubert Green, Rupert Friend as Montana, Aristou Meehan as Clifford and Erhan Josh Lee as Ricky.

This was directed with the usual dead-pan style that we've all come to expect by Wes Anderson ("Bottle Rocket" '96, "Rushmore" '98, "The Royal Tenenbaums" '01, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" '04, "The Darjeeling Limited" '07, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" '09, "Moonrise Kingdom" '12, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" '14, "Isle of Dogs" '18, "The French Dispatch" '21) plus shorts, a video and a music video, based on a story by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. Anderson, like some other directors, has his own distinct style which is that dead-pan effect from his actors, the way the project is filmed looking like it was shot in the fifties or sixties even though the setting might be present day with a lot of pastel colors used. I love his particular style because it truly works with the storyline. The reason why his style works with each projects' story is because Anderson writes his films, this being no exception. In fact, there is no reason to list the films he's written since he writes all films he directs. While the vast majority of Anderson's films are very creative, yet quirky, this film had far too many issues. There was a good film in this--I get where he was attempting to go with this, kind of a play within a play which was a movie, however, this concept simply became mired down with choppiness and confusion. Some of the actors looked as though they might have been having issues with this production themselves. Maybe I was just tired and didn't see what he was trying to convey to us, but since I typically have a huge respect for this filmmaker, I'm not sure. A bad day at the laptop? Not sure, but if you want to see well written films of Anderson, Netflix "The RoyalTenebaums" or "The Grand Budapest Hotel". This was extremely well photographed by Robert Yeoman asc, who has photographed a vast majority of Anderson's work, and with that gives us that similar feel we've all grown to love. 

If you are an ardent fan of Wes Anderson, you will certainly like this since the filming is quite similar to all his productions, but if you are fairly new to this filmmaker's work, I would probably steer clear of this project and, like I mentioned prior, Netflix other Anderson films that are far more captivating. 

Out of 4 Stars: 2                                         Rated: PG-13                                         105mins.