Asteroid City Redux

I wrote about Asteroid City a few weeks ago. I have more thoughts.

So, I saw Asteroid City again. I know that I wrote about it a few weeks ago, but I have more thoughts. This may not be my favorite Wes Anderson movie (yet), and still, I can’t stop thinking about how it’s the synthesis of everything he’s been working towards. Less of a Greatest Hits and more of a summation of what he’s been trying to say in his movies. I was initially hesitant about writing about it again since I only know a handful of people that have seen it, but this is my newsletter and I want to and so that’s that. A warning: There will be spoilers. I repeat … there will be spoilers.

The first time I saw this movie, the one piece that didn’t totally work for me was the Russian Nesting Dolls format à la The Grand Budapest Hotel. In that Ralph-Fiennes-starring film, the reason for the story within the story is to push a sentiment forward about the narratives we tell and why/how we tell them. In TGBH, we start at the cemetery of an author (based on real-life writer Stefan Zweig) and then we hurtle inside one of the fictional author’s most famous stories, the titular Grand Budapest Hotel. Placing these barriers of entry allows for a fairytale-esque retelling, which in the movie’s world throws us headfirst into the main storyline. This gobbledygook that I’m writing makes sense in the film itself, but it’s important when looking at the movie from a critical perspective because it highlights Anderson’s themes of nostalgia and memory.

Although Asteroid City uses a not-dissimilar entryway into its cavalcade of stories, Asteroid City doesn’t use this to provoke a feeling of sentimentality. Instead, it centers on the meaninglessness of it all and the grief that often comes with that thought process. As a setup, Anderson uses this parallel stories tactic to put walls up in the same way that people do when grieving or upset. He then slowly breaks them down, figuratively and also literally as the various tales collapse upon themselves, from Bryan Cranston’s anthology host showing up in the wrong scene to Jason Schwartzman’s Jones Hall leaving the play within a play to find out more about his character.

There are three stories: The filmed version of the Asteroid City play which is tucked inside the dramatic reenactment of the first staging of the play which is in turn inside of a television show (a Cranston-led Twilight Zone-esque program). This all sounds inscrutable and needlessly confusing, which it is. It jumps around on the timeline when it comes to each section.

Anderson is so particular about everything from camera movement to specific repetition of dialogue that I can’t believe that he would make this so challenging by accident. The thought of “What does this all mean?” is a constant when it comes to the characters, and I believe that Anderson built this into the outline of his movie to make the audience feel the same thing.

Although a relatively brief sequence, actor Jones Hall’s first meeting with Conrad Earp is a key of sorts to understanding the lingering anxiety throughout the movie. The two immediately hit it off, despite a bevy of differences, and by the end, a romance has flourished. By the end of the movie, we know that Earp has perished in a car accident. The movie claims that it’s an “accident” but it very easily could be a suicide as Earp writes about suicide in his own play and the story opens with a monologue that makes sure to note his solitary nature and love of drinking. Initially a throwaway comedic line, it’s very Wes Anderson to turn something witty and cute into something morose.

Of course, Earp could’ve just perished in a car accident in a kind of similar way to the Steenbeck family’s car troubles early on in his own story. I don’t think the audience is supposed to know for sure. As the characters themselves are still trying to figure it all out.

Schwartzman’s Jones Hall as Augie Steenbeck (Earp’s paramour) isn’t just trying to understand his character to play him correctly, but he wants to know why his character is written in such a peculiar way, so as to understand Earp in a better sense. Hall asks why his Steenbeck character would burn his hand on the grill the first time he meets Earp and it’s that exact moment in the play’s recreation which sets Hall off once again as he tries to learn more about his partner. Hall’s motivations are explained as him wanting to be a better actor and nail the role, which is probably true, but I think it’s also about him trying to learn more about Earp and what actually happened in the car accident.

The subsequent scene between Schwartzman and Margot Robbie is some of Anderson’s best writing. I’ve seen some claim that Robbie’s role is to allow Schwartzman’s Hall to find the motivation for his Steenbeck character to get over his deceased wife, and that could be part of it, but I also think it’s about Hall himself finally not blaming himself for what happened to Earp.

The quarantining subplot that begins with the arrival of the alien feels like a symbol of grief as well. The characters don’t have the ability to leave or move on with their lives. They have to come to grips with where they are, and each section tries to understand their sadness in different ways. The mob of adults lashes out with violence and anger. The brainiacs try to understand why what happened happened. Clifford, one of the teenage honorees, goes so far as to self-diagnose his hidden pain and trauma that leads to his constant dare requests. The teacher and her students attempt to talk it out and create art from the once-in-a-lifetime experience. And Scarlett Johannson’s Midge Campbell and Augie Steenbeck, who are numb to violence (Steenbeck with his war photography and Campbell with the abusive men in her past) each find a kindred soul to finally open up to, despite their drastically different backgrounds.

It seems a bit of a stretch to say that the meteorite is about the hole in the heart that grief may create, but Anderson does love over-the-top symbolism. The alien eventually comes back when there’s a sense of understanding in the air but there’s still chaos, as what’s lost never truly goes away. Anderson writes almost exactly that early on in Asteroid City.

There’s a line midway through the movie in which Tilda Swinton’s Dr. Hickenlooper states that “I never had children, but sometimes I wonder if I wish I should have.” And that feels like a microcosm of the entire film. Wanting something and thinking about wanting something are drastically different outlooks and it takes quite a bit of work and determination to get set on the path to going after what you want. The movie concludes with Robbie’s wife character buried in Asteroid City. Steenbeck is finally able to leave her behind in a way and move on to something new like his wife would’ve wanted (in the cut-for-time dream scene). He can’t grieve forever but he’ll remember her because his photos “always come out” and they last.

One more thing before I leave you. There’s a cryptic line that’s repeated again and again, and it is “You can't wake up if you don't go to sleep.” The scene irritated me on first viewing as it felt a bit overly staged and theatrical, but I like actor Steven Park’s take.

Well it’s a little bit of a zen koan, that’s my interpretation, where you can’t quite understand it intellectually. But the idea of waking up to the present moment, waking up to wonder. I think that’s kind of what Wes is pointing to, that there is something that’s beyond what we can understand. And like what Adrien Brody’s character is saying to Jason’s character about, ’Just keep on telling the story. You’re doing great. You don’t need to understand it. Just keep moving forward.’’ And it’s kind of a call to, ‘Hey, wake up. There’s something happening in front of you right here, right now.’

The movie needs its protagonist to stop living in the past and see what’s right in front of him, a loving family and potential partner that will in turn help him stop wallowing and start living again. You don’t need to understand all of it. You won’t be able to, whether it’s what an alien wants or why the people around us die. Trying to comprehend it all is foolish.

Anyway, more than 1,400 words later, that’s what I think Wes Anderson is trying to say with Asteroid City. I’ll let you know if I have any updates after my next viewing.

Check it out. And then maybe go see Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.