Asteroid City

I am a huge fan of Wes Anderson so I have been looking forward to Asteroid City for a long time.  I had the chance to see it last night at the Broadway and it was so much fun because there wasn't an empty seat in the theater and the audience laughed out loud the whole time (so did I).  Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), a war photographer mourning the recent death of his wife (Margot Robbie), arrives in the desert town of Asteroid City where his son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) is being honored at the Junior Stargazer Convention hosted by General Grif Gibson (Jeffrey Wright), his aide-de-camp (Tony Revolori), and an astronomer named Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton).  He soon meets the actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) who is also attending the convention with her daughter Dinah (Grace Edwards), another honoree.  A romance begins between Augie and Midge and between Woodrow and Dinah but an astrological event disrupts the convention.  A quarantine is declared and everyone, including Augie's father-in-law Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks) and his three daughters; the other honorees Shelley Borden (Sophia Lillas), Ricky Cho (Ethan Josh Lee) and Clifford Kellogg (Aristou Meehan) as well as their parents Sandy Borden (Hope Davis), Roger Cho (Stephen Park), and J.J. Kellogg (Liev Schreiber); a teacher named June Douglas (Maya Hawke) who is at the convention on a field trip with her students; and a group of singing cowboys (Rupert Friend, Jarvis Cocker, and Seu Jorge) just passing through town, is detained but given accommodation by a hotel manger (Steve Carrell).  This is a hilarious take on the ultimately futile search for the meaning of life but it is also about the power of art to explain the unexpected because the events in Asteroid City are eventually revealed to be a play.  Since this is a movie by Wes Anderson, the narrative also includes a television show (in black and white and Academy aspect ratio) about the making of the play with a host (Bryan Cranston), the playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), the director Schubert Green (Adrien Brody), the revered acting coach Saltzburg Keitel (Willem Dafoe), and all of the actors (playing roles within roles).  This movie doubles down on everything Wes Anderson is known for and I especially loved the stylized and elaborate production design, the pastel color palette, the symmetrical shot composition, the deadpan delivery which belies deeper emotions (Schwartzman and Johansson are brilliant but the rest of the cast is also outstanding), the subtle humor (the astronomical ellipses made this former English teacher laugh so hard), and all of the title cards. It is a masterpiece (one of Anderson's best) and I loved it but I don't think anyone who is not already a fan of Anderson's idiosyncrasies will enjoy it.