Whether there are actually aliens hidden somewhere in Searchlight Pictures’ Asteroid City by director Wes Anderson is up for debate. What’s pretty clear, though, is that the movie plays to all of Anderson’s strengths and will give all of his fans exactly what they showed up for.
It is set in a fictional American town in the mid-1950s. Asteroid City tells the story of a beleaguered widower (Jason Schwartzman) busy lugging his four kids across the country to see their grandfather (Tom Hanks) when their car suddenly breaks down. As uncomfortable as everyone is having to pull over in Asteroid City while their car gets fixed, the fact that there’s an annual junior stargazing contest delights the widower’s son Woodrow (Jake Ryan), and the trailer shows how the family lives in the world will be sucked. affairs in the city.
Of course there is the stargazing competition. But there are also strange earthquakes whose true cause no one knows, the fear that aliens are lurking among the people living in Asteroid City, and multiple sightings of a celebrity (Scarlett Johansson) – all of which seem to endure. Asteroid City‘s characters in a constant state of excitement.
No matter how busy it seems, Asteroid City also just looks like Wes Anderson doing Wes Anderson which is to say that for all its fixation on 20th century Americana and style bordering on two it will be a heartwarming parable aimed directly at people who like a bit of kitsch with their prestige.
Asteroid City also stars Margot Robbie, Hong Chau, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Ed Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, Tony Revolori, Grace Edwards, Aristou Meehan, Sophia Lillis, Ethan Lee, Jeff Goldblum and Rita Wilson. The film will hit theaters on June 16.