Breaking down the best images of Wes Anderson’s new movie ‘Asteroid City’
The American filmmaker Wes Anderson is heading to uncharted territory, with the trailer for his latest movie, Asteroid City, taking the director to new heights. Set in a fictional desert town in 1955, the movie tells the story of a Junior Stargazer convention which is disrupted by the unlikely arrival of aliens, with the bizarre appearance sparking comedy, drama, and unlikely romance.
We might not have seen the entirety of Asteroid City yet, but from the two-and-half-minute trailer, it looks as though Anderson’s latest could indeed be his most beautiful-looking movie to date. The time period of the 1950s, alongside the DIY space-themed event where the story takes place, makes for the perfect backdrop for Anderson’s colourful tale, which toys with earthly constructs of family and identity, as well as the cosmic threat of extraterrestrials.
Usually, Anderson only really sets his live-action stories within the boundaries of reality, albeit in a heightened version of planet earth where everything is a little more cartoonish, but this embrace of total sci-fi fantasy is entirely welcome. With a neon green glow and glass panels that look slightly like a vast ornate greenhouse, the UFO of Asteroid City, as seen in the trailer, even has Anderson’s signature mark of handmade elegance.
Speaking of aliens, it seems important to point out that when Maya Hawke’s character tells a group of children, “there are still only nine planets in the solar system, as far as we know,” one young ginger-haired boy replies, “except, now there’s an alien”. That’s ‘alien’ singular, not plural, meaning Anderson’s tale of America being visited by extraterrestrial life might be more like the small-scale drama of E.T., rather than the bombastic terror of Independence Day.
Look even closer, and you’ll also see that Anderson’s aliens may be rather abstract, with Sophia Lillis’ character at one point identifying different beings from strange black and white sketches. But, this is then contradicted when Steve Carell’s character states: “they’re strange aren’t they. They’re children compared to normal people,” whilst we see a teenager jump off a roof, only to arise totally unharmed. Perhaps Anderson’s aliens look no different from humans?
Still, just like every one of the filmmaker’s movies, Asteroid City looks to have a heart-warming message about the importance of family below all those magnetising sci-fi visuals. “You’re saying our mother died three weeks ago,” a young boy utters to his father, played by Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman, “Let’s say she’s in heaven…which doesn’t exist for me, of course, but your Episcopalian”.
Indeed, it seems as though the arrival of aliens has caused the entire population of Asteroid City to have something of an existential crisis, with people panicking about the meaning of life and their place in the universe. Aside from Schwartzman’s father figure, Tom Hanks’ character also states: “in my loneliness, I learned to give complete and unquestioning faith to the people I love, I don’t know if that includes you, but it included my daughter and your four children”.
By the looks of the film’s very first trailer, and its jaw-dropping ensemble cast that includes the likes of Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Scarlett Johansson, Rupert Friend, Margot Robbie, Bryan Cranston, Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum, Asteroid City could well be Wes Anderson’s very best.
See the best images from the trailer below.
