Asteroid City (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Another year, another Wes Anderson project. His titles are really hit-or-miss for me; out of his now eleven titles, I'd only happily rewatch five, while the others I prefer not to remember at all. Thankfully, Asteroid City falls squarely in the former category for me. Anderson's latest is a love letter to boyhood interest in space and to our love of theatre and television especially in an age of exciting (or scary) new advancements.

Asteroid City reimagines the luster and wonder of postwar curiosities and anxieties about the space race, radioactivity, and of course aliens. Reliably shot by Anderson's frequent cinematographer Robert Yeoman and beautifully, brilliantly designed by Adam Stockhausen (a regular collaborator with Spielberg, Anderson, and Steve McQueen), the film breathes excitement and ingenuity. The film opens in black-and-white square Academy ratio as if it were a televised special, a radio play or documentary in the mid-50s. Our host is Bryan Cranston, who does a sort of emcee-narrator riff as he tells the story of the fabulous new play "Asteroid City," to be presented presently, by fictional playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton). The play itself is presented to us in glorious widescreen and stylized technicolor and comprises most of the runtime. 

The mise en abyme here is perhaps the most clearly delineated in all of Anderson's films that include multiple layers or framing devices; I appreciated the simplicity for once. And the film -- the televised play, that is -- is a wonderfully realized production. Asteroid City looks not unlike those experimental "Stepford" type towns constructed in a remote desert for the dual purposes of being a sweet oasis for the weary traveler and to ostensibly be destroyed by bomb fallout at test sites. It's a bare place, with neat lines and cookie-cutter shacks and a certain retro charm, helped in no small part by the vibrant colors of the desert (the bright orange sand and light blue sky in stark contrast separated only by a thin horizon are picturesque and uncanny at once). The "city" is about to host a camp for science-oriented youth, drawn no doubt partly because it's also the site of a large meteor crater.

Comedy ensues partly due to Anderson's affinity for nerdy malcontents, naturally, and this film assembles quite an ensemble, which is saying a lot considering all Anderson's films have ludicrously large casts. The main character (arguably) is Woodrow (Jake Ryan), the oldest son of Augie Steenback (Jason Schwartzman), a war photographer who hasn't yet told his children that their mother has been dead for almost a month. Woodrow connects most closely at camp with Dinah (Grace Edwards), daughter of a melancholic but accomplished movie star (Scarlett Johansson), but their cohort of "Stargazers" also includes Ethan Josh Lee as a boy who questions authority and Aristou Meehan as a boy eager to be dared to enact dangerous or foolish stunts. Naturally, more comedy ensues when the camp's keynote speaker, General Gibson (Jeffrey Wright, a perfect casting for what is essentially the banality of evil), is revealed to be planning to steal the tech developed by these kids for the US government.

Those more interested in the human emotional core of this film should find it more accessible and relatable than in most of Anderson's films; at least, I did. The central family drama expands a bit when Augie's father-in-law (Tom Hanks) arrives to help his grandchildren process grief over their mother's death. Woodrow's sisters never quite land as real characters, but their interactions with Hanks are very cute. Surprisingly, I did not care much about the human part of this film -- perhaps I've been burned too often by Anderson to want to care about characters this time -- and much preferred the caricatures and form. That said, Johansson and Schwartzman completely blew me away with their performances; specifically Schwartzman, who has never done a role quite like this, and who plays Augie as well as the actor playing Augie as he convinces (seduces?) Earp to cast him. 

Asteroid City isn't wholly unlike those slice of life plays of a type of expansion-era mindset. Think October Sky meets Our Town. There's a lot of busy action, people talking and not listening, seeing and not appreciating, and connecting in unexpected ways. But by the final act, it all seems to boil down to everyone wondering what the meaning of human life is or could be. Because not only is their liminal space, floating precariously on ruin in the desert, an existential crisis itself, but during the camp they are visited not once but twice by an alien flying saucer. This revelation -- portrayed in brilliant stop-motion -- does very little to help anyone's existential crises, but it certainly provides opportunity for the characters to reflect and stay in town for another week. Which, really, is what we're all doing in life, right?

Anderson, of course, handles these themes deftly, perhaps even briskly here. His characters are agonizing for answers and purpose, and yet when given the metaphorical microphone, they voice their version of the questions we ourselves have as audience members: "I don't understand the play. Am I doing it right?" It's these moments that take us out of the play and into the film properly, and I loved that. Much as how every single detail of the sets and props are important and brilliant, these little "asides" from Anderson's screenplay are crucial and poignant. There is a lot of silly stuff here, much like in Moonrise Kingdom, but Anderson wants us to work our way though tough questions. One of my only notes from watching this movie came from Johansson, who while gazing through neighboring windows at Augie and discussing their melancholia, says, "We're just two catastrophically wounded people who don't express the depths of our pain because [...] we don't want to."

The French Dispatch (2021)

Score: 3.5 / 5

It might be the most Wes Anderson Wes Anderson movie yet, and that's just what it is. If you like his usual style, you'll probably like this, because he ramps it up about 200% from usual. If you don't like his style, you'll probably hate this because it's just too niche. I've always been on the fence with him, because for me Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel are wonderful films, especially that last, but I have felt indifferent or negatively toward most of his others, such as his most recent, Isle of Dogs. This most recent is more like Hotel in terms of style, substance, and grandiosity of storytelling, and for those elements I quite enjoyed it. But it's also surprisingly inaccessible, even for people who are willing to let Anderson take them on another funny, weird ride through his unique experience of life in a strange world.

A meditation on journalism -- I think -- The French Dispatch begins with Angelica Huston's voiceover narration about the establishment of the titular magazine. Though it was founded in Liberty, Kansas, where its editor Howitzer (Bill Murray) was born, it is now published in a little French town called Ennui-sur-Blasé, which means something like sophisticated boredom. In rapid succession, we are introduced to Howitzer's loyal staff in their oddly crumbling but quaint offices; the characters are not seen directly at first, and left almost unknowable until they respectively share some of their work with us. The film is divided into sections, one from each of the eccentric journalists, that form what is meant to be the final issue of the magazine. Based on the style of the on-screen font and the unusual focus of the fictional writing staff, it seems that we are meant strongly to think of the Dispatch in the same terms we think of The New Yorker. The secondary opening sequence seems pointedly to satirize (or offer homage to) the New Yorker regular piece "The Talk of the Town," funnily narrated by Owen Wilson in a beret and on a bicycle, riding through the small town and showing us the locations (past and future) when he's not colliding with commoners or falling down holes.

To recount the plot (of which there is essentially none) seems fruitless and even arrogant, as I frankly had trouble with all the characters and their doings. There are three main stories that take up the bulk of screen time, each from a different writer's perspective. One involves an incarcerated painter and his muse who is also his prison guard, and their work with an art dealer on the outside. One involves the writer inserting herself into a student protest led by a moody young revolutionary and the fallout that entails. One involves a legendary chef whose only employ is in the police department kitchen, despite the reporter's best efforts at launching him to fame. The pieces are all shot in Anderson's style, but with various kinds of changing aesthetics; for instance, during a chase scene, everything is presented suddenly as an animated cartoon.

That's shocking, but not really in context of Anderson's work. Everything is usually presented in toybox or dollhouse style in his films, and each piece of the set and props are clearly chosen and altered to cultivate a painfully specific atmosphere. His production design notoriously borders on the obsessive, and here (as in Hotel) that is most clearly sensed. Perhaps that's because it's so removed from most audience members' lived experience. There is almost nothing relatable in this film, at least physically, and yet it seems Anderson wants to transport us to a very real world for which he then wants us to experience some kind of catharsis through nostalgia, even if the nostalgia is for a fantasy. 

I don't really know what else to say about this film. It's a valuable experience, I thought, and one that I'll need to mull over. But even more than in most of his work, here I just couldn't connect to any of the (many, many) characters or even fully understand the setting or themes. I suppose part of the project is to simply appreciate the varied work of specialized journalists, but I'd rather have movies like All the President's Men or The Post than something like this. It just moved far too quickly and with too many moving parts for my taste; I could never really savor the crucial beats in even the expository bits. There's a relentlessness in its pace that denies us access to any thematic underpinnings, even as the experience of Anderson dragging us through his imagination was thrilling.

Isle of Dogs (2018)

Score: 2 / 5

Isle of Dogs is a perfect example of Anderson's artistry. The incredible design of the film and its stop-motion animation are more than enough to earn its praise. Abundant details keep everything magnificent on a big screen. The film isn't as colorful or vibrant as, for example, Moonrise Kingdom, but it's got some really arresting moments, especially the Western-meets-noir moments on Trash Island. It's got some slick, dry humor, too, which I was digging for the first half of the film, along with some incredible music. But style only works for me when it reinforces content.

The story is just weird. Thousands of dogs suffering dog flu and the prejudices of a dictatorial mayor are banished to a nearby landfill island. A lone boy, nephew to the despot -- destined for greatness by proximity to greatness, no doubt -- crashes his plane on Trash Island to find his own dog Spots. A group of alpha dogs (who are really anything but alpha in demeanor, as they gossip and bumble throughout the film) befriend him and help him search.

Unfortunately, Anderson keeps everything at a sort of ironic distance, valuing his own aesthetic over developing context or enhancing meaning in the story he's telling. That's not unlike his approach to every film under his name, but here I didn't see how it matched the story.

The film's logic is also woefully skewed. The dogs, though living in Japan, speak English and cannot understand the Japanese boy's speech, which becomes a point of sourly humorous absurdity. It seems that formal Japanese speeches must include a haiku poem, another point of absurdist humor that sat badly with me. And then there's the motif of a mushroom cloud (!) every time something explodes, something that felt severely shortsighted on Anderson's part. If Anderson wanted to pander to his American audience, presumably because we're so shallow we need to identify with the characters and can only do so when they speak English or are white, why set his movie in Japan?

A few more quick problems I noted. Most of the Japanese dialogue, rather than directly translated for the audience or even subtitled, is rendered though the medium of Frances McDormand's dialogue as a reporter. She translates (maybe) the essential bits of exposition. In a movie of male characters and male voice actors, it's not insignificant that there is one female dog (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) who is called a bitch at least once. Accurate? Sure. In poor taste? You betcha. The film also has an interesting anti-cat theme, one that I can sympathize with, that feels overt and more than a little sinister.

I was most disturbed, though, by the character of Tracy (voiced by Greta Gerwig, who really should have known better), an exchange student investigating the politics in Japan and the corruption of the mayor. Tracy is the White Savior, rousing the otherwise voiceless people of Japan and rallying them to confront the mayor. Her afro-style hair notwithstanding, when she finally leads a protest to interrupting the mayor's public address, she raises her fist in what looks suspiciously like a Black Power salute (never mind the lack of people of color in the ensemble film). Then, of course, there's the scene where she violently assaults the scientist Yoko Ono (voiced by Yoko Ono) to get her to stand up for herself and fight back against the mayor.

WHAT? Yeah. That happened.

I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh. But I just didn't enjoy this movie, beautiful as it may be. Its problems are far more troubling than I expected; so much so, in fact, that I want to revisit his other movies and see if they're as disturbing. Humor doesn't have to come at the cost of racist or sexist jokes, and there's really no excuse for it these days. Especially not when your story sucks as it is.

IMDb: Isle of Dogs

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Score: 5 / 5

Wes Anderson is a unique and fascinating visionary, and this film is certainly his best yet. It would be remiss of me to note that his style is not for everyone -- and that even after a certain point in any of his films I've had about enough -- but his incredible aesthetic and sense of pace in this particular production are pure genius. Shall we check into the hotel, then?

Anderson's greatest strength, in my opinion, lies in his ability to amass an irresistible cast and then turn them loose in a surreal/hyperreal/[insert descriptor] environment. This film alone boasts an enormous ensemble including Adrien Brody, Williem Dafoe, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Wilkinson, Saoirse Ronan, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Almaric, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, and Owen Wilson. I mean, honestly. And then there's our leads. Ralph Fiennes in yet another character role, and the young (and, to me, totally unfamiliar) Tony Revolori. These two men balance each other flawlessly, and their volleyed energy is both captivating and endlessly entertaining.

Our story concerns a devoted concierge Gustave (Fiennes) who runs the fabulous titular hotel. His service includes special attention to the intimate desires of aging women, one of whom (Swinton) mysteriously dies and leaves to him a valuable painting. After Gustave steals the lady's painting, her furious family (Brody) hires an assassin (Dafoe) to track it down and eliminate rival heirs. Meanwhile, Gustave is arrested under suspicion of murder and escapes jail with help of his protégé lobby boy, Zero (Revolori). The two team up to prove Gustave's innocence, which of course happens after many chases and shootouts.

The plot can get a bit thick, but the film doesn't much count on the plot to carry it. It also doesn't do much for character; to be sure, Gustave and Zero are wonderfully realized, but the remaining characters are loose archetypes intended for comic revelation, and often rely on the actor's celebrity or aesthetic résumé. Instead, Anderson gives us so many visual pleasures in each frame that the whole film becomes a sinfully rich buffet of images. He divides time periods with different aspect ratios, and transitions between miniatures, sets, and effects with intoxicating ease. The intense complexity of visuals in this film mirrors (and arguably glosses over) the great thematic depths to which the film dives. Its sharp wit centers on a narrative of unlikely friendship and personal redemption, framed against an atmosphere of change and unrest (as the fictional setting is seen to be an isolated European mountainside in the years between the World Wars). Anderson uses a pseudo-farcical caper as a vehicle to carry our leading men on a journey that ultimately legitimizes their daily efforts in service of their occupation. I was most satisfied, though, with the frame story, in which we see a larger context for the adventures of Gustave, including the effects of war and poverty and the importance of having one's story told, especially if that is your primary legacy. The last shot is a powerful punch on that front.

IMDb: The Grand Budapest Hotel