Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.
I watched Asteroid City last night, and it left me in something of a quandary. Typically when I watch something that I know will appear on this blog in one form or another, I review it immediately so that I am addressing the thoughts I have while it is all still fresh in my memory. I couldn’t really do that with Asteroid City because I wasn’t sure of what I thought about it or how I thought about it. Even now, more than 12 hours after watching, I’m still trying to make sense of it.
Wes Anderson has always been the twee-est of twee directors, and that’s not going to change with this one. All of his characters, as always, are defined by their quirks. Asteroid City gives us a constellation of people, many of whom are recognizable, legitimate stars who appear in this for a scene or two and say a line or two before vanishing. Jeff Goldblum, Margot Robbie, Hong Chau, Bob Balaban, Willem Dafoe, and others show up for a scene or two and then never really appear again. All of this is in service of a story that is about the creation of the story that we are watching—we’re looking at (essentially) a fictional documentary about the creation of a stage play and the actors who put on that play, and we are watching both the stage play as if it were the main story (which it is) and the actors behind the scenes. It’s multiple levels of meta.
