Asteroid City

[Westside Steve]

Asteroid City

Focus Features

PG-13.            105

 

This is not a bad film for a spoiler alert not that I'm going to give away much in the way of secrets concerning the plot but just because you might be better off walking in with no idea what's going to happen. Because I guarantee at the end of the film you're going to walking out with a very similar idea; namely what the hell just happened?

No doubt the previews revealed this film would be set in 1950s American desert and that it might have some sort of Americana science fiction space invaders kind of a hook. Yes indeed. You might have read Tom Hanks name in the credits along with a few other notables who enjoy occasionally adding their talents to quirky pictures. Those include Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Bryan cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Carell and Matt Dillon among others.

It does begin with the disclaimer that this film is based on a play about fictitious people and events any similarity to people or places living or dead blah blah blah is completely unintentional. That's pretty easy to believe.

Easy because this is a serious of events so haphazard and almost so unrelated that you can't imagine anything like this happening anywhere except in someone's weird imagination .

Add the word  incomprehensible, but in the end usually riveting, and the name Wes Anderson comes to mind. Along with his films which include the ROYAL TANNENBAUMBS THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL RUSHMORE and plenty of others. Three aspects of this film involve a black and white TV documentary filmed in the style of the golden age black and white, the behind the scenes look at some of the actors writers extras Hollywood technicians Etc who are putting this play/documentary together, and the actual play itself.

Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) a recently widowed former war photographer driving his children cross country to their grandfather's (Tom Hanks) house. When the station wagon blows up in a strange little tourist trap of a town called Asteroid City whose claim to fame is that, well, and asteroid landed there a long time ago. They are all stuck there with a variety of strange people awaiting grandpa to come and get them and the ashes of mom safely packed into a Tupperware container. The flick jumps among the three facets, the production the documentary and the store itself with almost no rhyme nor reason. That means there's no reason for me to dwell on any particular scenes but keep in mind that earlier I use the word riveting. This is one of those situations where your mileage may differ. Me? I actually really enjoyed it like I do with almost every example of Anderson's nonsense. Then again I have no doubt that some people will despise it. But let me tell you that it's crazy more in the sense of a Salvador Dally painting where everything is planned out specifically than a Yoko Ono record, which consists of pointless shrieking.

And I absolutely loved the 1950s set decor which permeated the flick on all three levels.

So I'm giving it an A even though I completely understand you might absolutely hate it. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

A

WSS