Wes Anderson is one of the consistent directors of his generation — what to anticipate from each of his pictures, and so they are all kind of pretty good. But he knocked it out of the park with Asteroid City, a loopy, Looney Tunes-inspired comedy that sneakily transforms right into a moving meditation on art and the universal human have to tell stories.
At a young astronomers’ convention within the titular desert city, a UFO suddenly appears and takes a meteorite from a crater within the town’s center. This amazing extraterrestrial first contact makes national news, leading to a cadre of various reporters, scientists and spiritual groups to go to town to see if the UFO will return. In the midst of all this chaos, a recently widowed father, Woodrow (Jason Schwartzman), struggles to reconcile his still lingering grief with a blossoming romance with famous film actress Midge (Scarlett Johansson).
That’s the essential plot of Asteroid City, but there’s so rather more occurring, like a framing device that makes every little thing you’re watching an elaborate play that’s also being filmed as a television documentary. Confused? Well, that’s only natural, but it surely’s also what makes Asteroid City so effective, moving — and strikingly different from the director’s previous works. With a solid that features Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody and Margot Robbie, the movie is filled with enough starpower to maintain you engaged, even whenever you get a bit lost in its surreal story.