One thing was clear when Wes Anderson’s long-awaited The French Dispatch premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2021 to impassioned yet divided reception: the highly respected veteran filmmaker was leaving traditional narrative structure and his reliance on lead actors behind. And what was an audacious anthological love letter to journalism and celebration of art and artists in all forms has now been followed up with an equally ambitious meta-narrative on existence and how we grapple with it (and confound it further) with the creation and consumption of art. Following a collection of broken, struggling adult characters and their prodigal children who all end up in a small desert town for a junior astronomy convention, Asteroid City is a somber, surprisingly metatextual spin on the sci-fi genre and the air of existentialism and philosophical exploration that so often accompanies it.

At this point, Anderson’s style is one of the most tried and true in the industry. The pastel sets, vibrant cinematography, deadpan delivery, and overarching idiosyncrasy are his staples, and expecting a diversion from this would be rather ludicrous at this point. So, all aboard the Wes Anderson train, because you’re either along for the ride or you’re not. Anderson seemingly cares for nothing besides taking himself and his willing fans through increasingly challenging narratives and symbolic concepts. While many will be put off by this, I’m personally in it for the long haul. Maybe he’ll lose me one day, but not today, as Anderson’s style still works wonders for me. I’ve always found his deadpan humorous style uniquely funny and refreshingly frank, as his characters consistently bluntly say what we’re all often thinking about the world around us. One would be forgiven for calling it on the nose or obvious, but it works so well in tandem with his overall brand of storytelling that I couldn’t care less.

As you probably already gleaned from the first two paragraphs, all the perks of a typical Anderson production are here, including an exceedingly impressive cast. This sprawling ensemble of both Anderson regulars and some of the biggest names in the industry serve up Anderson’s trademark deadpan comedy and unassuming emotional depth left and right to consistently entertaining effect. One could easily fill the typical word count of a film review simply by listing members of the cast, but some of the most prominently featured (and known) names include Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, and Steve Carell. It comes as no surprise that everyone involved plays off one another wonderfully and conveys Anderson’s typically witty but uniquely dense screenplay with commendable prowess. And in case this plethora of industry titans isn’t to your fancy, surely some of the countless cameos will be. Amidst them all, however, Schwartzman and Johansson definitely stood out the most to me with their excellent comedic timing and quiet emotional resonance. And while he may not be the biggest of names, the young Jake Ryan was also incredibly delightful as Schwartzman’s socially awkward “brainiac” son.

Three other completely expected positive attributes of this production are Robert Yeoman’s vibrant cinematography, Alexandre Desplat’s whimsical and calmly beautiful score, and Adam Stockhausen’s lush and ornate production design. Though it may technically be on the same scale as The Grand Budapest Hotel’s regal European inn or The French Dispatch’s quaint French town of Ennui, Stockhausen ensures that Anderson’s outside the box take on the classic Americana and futuristic sci-fi sensibilities is perfectly atmospheric and teeming with all the cinematic magic you’d expect. Also somewhat overlooked but equally impressive in my opinion are the film’s deceptively layered and creative sound design and the playful, intentionally silly visual effects that come into play to great effect in key narrative moments that bring the unexpected and supernatural crashing into these characters’ scientific and somber world.

And that is where, in my eyes, Anderson is really covering new ground with his eleventh feature film. Beyond all of his typical stylings and typically expansive A-list cast is a uniquely somber, introspective, and universal film about the existential dread that creeps at the outskirts of our daily lives and how we choose to deal with it. Science vs. art. Art creation vs. art consumption. Religion vs. religion. Emotional suppression vs. unbridled despair. Fate vs unpredictability. Of course, Anderson has explored many authentic and poignant themes throughout his filmography. In fact, his last film also explored the impact and importance of art on humanity, which makes Asteroid City feel very much like a spiritual successor. And yet, this sense of universal existentialism and the exploration of the human condition at its most commonly felt feels new to Anderson’s repertoire. And it really is refreshing!

The film sees a number of emotionally damaged and philosophically upended characters gathered for an excursion of scientific exceptionalism, with the marvels of human innovation on full display. The universe has never felt more conquerable, and yet these characters can’t escape the crippling weight of their unexplained purpose in life or the hardships they’ve faced, and no amount of scientific advancement can prepare them for the unbelievable predicament they soon find themselves in thanks to some soft sci-fi elements. And standing not at odds with, but alongside this sense of scientific exploration is a fixation on art. In ways that I don’t wish to spoil, the film is highly metatextual and self-referential, serving as a celebration, analysis, and deconstruction of the art we humans create and consume, as well as what we seek to gain from it in the process. This film feels especially concerned with the “art vs. artist” conflict, but not at all in the way you’d expect. Perhaps I should even add a “vs. consumer” onto that descriptor. In short, we humans all experience pain, confusion, and uncertainty both in our daily lives and about the mysteries of the universe around us. We seek meaning and validation in science, religion, relationships, accomplishments, and so on. But we are left empty, longing for a genuine and confirmed sense of meaning, for none of our social prescriptions are proven to be true. And we know this, so we create art as a way to create a personal sense of meaning. And if not, we consume it, hoping to glean some sort of revelation from it all. Perhaps it’s a futile exercise, but it is an important and universal one.

Art exists at the intersection of our individual worldviews and senses of self. It seeks to explain what we can never actually know, and in the process, creates a paradox unto itself. Artists create art, in its purest form, as some sort of selfish attempt at personal fulfillment. It has a level of personal meaning that, regardless of the amount of explaining they do, can never be truly felt by others the way the artists feel it. Then, this art exists out in the world as an ambiguous shell for anybody and everybody to take in and prescribe their own personal meaning to, often in knowing dissonance or unknowing obliviousness to the intentions of the original artist. The very thing we as humans create to make sense of our own existence and find some solace in the mystery of it all becomes its own mystery. This art then gets debated and interpreted to no end as people ponder the meaning of individual passages and overarching works for generations to come, arguing its intent and even validity to no end. Thus, art is its own philosophy and its own void of existential perplexity. The universal human desire for meaning only serves to create more ambiguity in a vicious cycle of existential pondering. However, there is immense beauty in the struggle, and perhaps our ability to pave our own way in the mystical uncertainty of it all is the ultimate gift of existence. So give a big thanks to your deity of choice, fate, or the lifeless void of space and the randomness of the Big Bang, because we’re all stuck in this together, creating, consuming, and criticizing art of great significance to at least one person.

Asteroid City has all of the stylings and gimmicks you’d expect from a Wes Anderson number, but make no mistake: Anderson’s foray into the paradoxical has never been more delightfully fantastical, thematically broad, and truly universal in its explorations. It’s also an existential romp of astronomical proportions. Through its ambitious deconstructions of human existence, the limits of science, and the subjectivity of art, it finds true beauty and cathartic ambivalence to “it all”. The universe may be a void of unknowable unknowns and our efforts to deal with it may be equally obsolete, but it can’t be all that bad because, after all, we have a new Wes Anderson picture to enjoy. 

9/10