‘Asteroid City’ Critique: Wes Anderson Fails and Can’t Move Beyond His Known Aesthetic

IN asteroid city, Wes Anderson, reality doubles. On the one hand, the script, written by the director and Roman Coppola, tells the story of a play set in the Sonoran Desert. On the other hand, the actors who participate in the performance. Both sequences are told in different styles. Reality in black and white; fantasy, in color. But the director also explores life, extraordinary events and hope in his usual melancholic, slightly melodramatic and secondary visual style.

However, this time the combination is not as effective. asteroid city For the first half hour, he advances in a prologue that tries to make his plot as clear as possible. The camera moves from one place to another, between scenes and small circumstances that become the only trunk of the choral story. At least he tries to do it, although without much success.

A large number of characters – in the plot and on the stage – makes it difficult to tell the story. So much so that it makes it chaotic and full of bugs that are not supported by any clear point. Does the film want to tell a love story? This is what one can assume while the plot explores life Ogie (Jason Schwartzman) and his startling delusion for an actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson).

Love that finds no conclusion

However, the story changes its tone and meaning, connecting with the arrival of an alien and exploring the unexpected and the pain of loss. All this is combined in frequent transitions between what is happening on the stage, which never completely stops, and the life that goes on outside the stage. In the director’s other productions, the formula allowed for an eccentric and flamboyant journey through the lives and circumstances of disparate characters.

But what’s in Hotel Budapest it was cute and French chronicle elegant and slightly satirical, in asteroid city it’s confusing and hard to understand. Little by little, more than twenty stories intertwine in what seems to be a great exploration of the meaning of life. However, most subplots lead nowhere and do not support the main plot, which is difficult to recognize. Is it a tongue-in-cheek narrative that reality is an art form, or vice versa? This is a question about how the singular takes place in everyday?

Direct answers are not usually part of Wes Anderson’s arguments. But this time, the targets in the plot seem more careless than the little traps, emphasizing symbolic dots. Either because of the expansion of the repertoire of conflicts, or because the figures occupying the center of interest subsequently disappear into useless narrative scenarios. asteroid city nice but empty. At least that’s the feeling that he gives throughout most of his shots and that gets in the way of his finale, amazing and touching.

asteroid city This is Wes Anderson at its finest.

Nevertheless, asteroid city It is the most visually sophisticated film that identifies a director. Sonora – fictional – is a combination of pastel colors and neat framing of dazzling beauty. These are the various ways the director tries to show love, eradication, loneliness and spiritual quest.

An emotional connection between two characters who look at each other only through the window, the sadness of a purple-blue sunset. An ingenious perception of life, born in the midst of desert landscapes, shimmering under the sun with ocher tones.

The whole visual range is striking, exciting and, without a doubt, is the strength of the film. However, the script does not fully promise aesthetic appeal in the service of a witty story. What is he doing asteroid city in a neat empty frame, the narrative of which collapses very quickly. The biggest problem with a disappointing movie is that it can’t live up to its ambitious offer to tell an amazing story with a strong cast.

In your last scene asteroid city shines like a piece of aesthetic art. This makes the question of whether its visual part is enough to support its story more relevant. The question the film fails to answer and which, in the end, becomes its biggest weakness.