Asteroid City

All of the comic book movies have meta-multi-verses, so why shouldn’t Wes Anderson? Here’s your precious, old-timey-looking ticket. Welcome to the Meta-Wes-iverse. It’s a Twilight Zone hosted televised play, but also the making of that play, and also a filmed version of that play. It’s a kaleidoscope of deadpan oddness. It’s impossible to explain the overall plot, but the filmed story of the play is the principal stuff, a melancholy fable about a widowed dad (Jason Schwartzman) who falls in love with a movie star (Scarlett Johansson) during a science fair/alien invasion somewhere in the desert boonies. Their relationship is the emotional core of the story and it definitely achieves some poignant moments. Lots of other movie stars clutter-up the proceedings with their deadpan deliveries and it’s a bit difficult to reconcile it all. Production Design, costumes, hair, etcetera are all strongly Wes Andersony. But the plot and the pace is something new – slow, dry, and music-less. There’s lots of creativity on display, but you are and will always be at the mercy of the filmmaker -- and Anderson and company take their sweet time.