Presented at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, it will hit Italian cinemas on September 14th in association with Universal Pictures.
1955: Visitors to Asteroid City witness an incredibly close encounter with an alien. After this, the US military sends all witnesses to the unprecedented event into quarantine, in which their lives will meet and intertwine in a completely unexpected way.
Wes Anderson belongs to that category of filmmakers who can be recognized from the first frame of each of their works. His colorful style, full of symmetries, split screens and surreal dialogue, is now virtually an unmistakable trademark..
However, compared to the past, which combined stylistic imprint with a captivating and often compelling taste for storytelling, today his cinema seems largely limited to the sum of its consolidated stylistic features..
We noticed this in the previous French control room and we find it in this too Asteroid cityvisually gorgeous and polished, but narratively rather weak.
A real shame because the cast, as usual, consists of a parade of excellent actors (veterans Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Tilda Swinton this time they will unite Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Maya Hawke, Jeffrey Wright, Bryan Cranstonetc.), which, however, in many cases are limited to a couple of sequences, without being too exaggerated.
By this we don’t mean that Asteroid city this is not an enjoyable film, and fans of Anderson’s work will be more likely to despise it than to he lacks the courage to truly engage the viewer and immerse him in his wonderfully imaginary world.
For our part, we hope that Anderson’s cinema returns to putting characters and their stories at the center and placing less emphasis on formal perfection, which is undoubtedly an end in itself.
Because this movie, so manically calculated, ends up being dry, lifeless and even a little boring.
Paola Canali