By Seth Lukas Hynes
Asteroid City
Starring Jason Schwarzman, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks
Rated M
3/5
Asteroid City is a charming, well-produced film that destroys its own drama with one fatal creative decision.
In 1955, a youth science convention in the desert town of Asteroid City is upended by an extraterrestrial visit.
Asteroid City is replete with writer-director Wes Anderson’s unique twee surrealism and witty dialogue, and the film has crisp, pastel-coloured cinematography. Some viewers will enjoy Asteroid City’s relaxed, languid pace, but the film has several affecting moments of pathos and humour.
Jason Schwartzman is engaging as a stolid father dealing with repressed trauma, and the young geniuses honoured at the convention have fun chemistry.
Unfortunately, Asteroid City has the same mortal flaw as The Wonder from 2022: by openly acknowledging its fictionality, all tension is lost.
“Verisimilitude” is the convincing appearance or impression of reality. Media does not necessarily need to look real to feel real, as a stylised animation can still draw you into its world and invest you in its characters and plot.
Asteroid City begins with the narrative framing-device of a black-and-white TV movie on the production of the play Asteroid City, with the colourful bulk of the film being the play itself; from its first moments, the film explicitly reveals its fakeness, losing all verisimilitude.
The film repeatedly returns to this framing device, along with act-scene title-cards. For all its powerful performances and themes of loss, curiosity, quarantine and aliens, there is no tension because you are constantly reminded that nothing in the plot is actually happening.
Your tolerance may vary, but to me, films sabotage their suspense and are very difficult to engage with when they openly acknowledge their fakeness.
A quirky, well-acted comedy-drama that shoots itself in the foot by undermining its own realism, Asteroid City is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
