Asteroid City

By Wes Anderson

Reviewed by Dawson Knight

I am honored to introduce you to our newest segment here at For When The Cows Come Home, They Let a Cow into The Movie Theater. In this segment we have a friend stop by and give us a review of their favorite movie of the month! Kicking this off we have my friend and director Dawson Knight bringing you his thought on Wes Anderson’s new film, Asteroid City!

I would say I mostly love the work of Wes Anderson. If there is ever a movie he directs that doesn’t connect with me on an emotional level I can usually say his very distinct visual style and set design was enjoyable to watch. There are times though where his movies push past just passive enjoyment and can become very esoteric and thoughtful and those become some of my favorite movies. Grand Budapest Hotel, Darjeeling Limited, Royal Tenanbaums, these are movies that mean quite a bit to me and have connected with me on a personal level. His filmmaking is very mannered and precise and his characters are usually closed off and monotone. They speak very clearly and seemingly will say exactly what they mean, this can lead to the movies often feelings like fairy tales. Wes might not take the world his characters inhabit all that seriously but he always takes his characters emotions seriously, and his best films balance both the quirkiness and the hard hitting emotional reality very well.

Asteroid City is Wes Anderson’s most recent movie and it’s not an entry in his catalogue that is going to make any new fans, but I do think for those tracking his career it’s a very interesting entry. The movie functions as a “documentary” recounting the writing and production of the movie we are watching (Asteroid City). Because of this structure the film switches styles visually and narratively and I can see it being frustrating for someone that just wants a straight forward story. Wes Anderson being meta isn’t a new thing but this movie for sure leans into it as its main narrative device and for me I found it super unique. I say I liked the style of this movie knowing that this isn’t going to be a thing that people just walking into the movie because they saw Tom Hanks was in it will resonate with. It’s definitely one of those movies that is less focused on providing a satisfying narrative with highs and lows. It’s instead is an exercise in his style and meta storytelling as a way to examine themes of grief, parenthood, artistic burdens, lack of fulfillment…. there’s a lot going on.

It’s with that said that I don’t know how to recommend this to everyone but I do hope a lot of people see it. Wes Anderson is his own genre of movie at this point, and I think it’s great that he continues to make his type of movie and manages to have massive ensemble casts paired with it. There’s clearly a ton of love and passion put into everything he makes and he’s gotten so good at it I will always recommend people give his work a shot.