At this point, what’s most impressive about Wes Anderson’s movies is how quickly he makes them. Woody Allen used to be the fastest auteur in the world not named Hong Sangsoo, but Allen’s films were simple in the first place, and over the years he had streamlined his production methods. Anderson’s movie-a-year schedule seems more daunting, not only because of his painstakingly elaborate production design, but also due to the complications inherent in his scripts. His latest involves two storylines, one dependent on the other, but even within those two storylines there are subplots that overlap and intersect without derailing the audience’s train of thought. It’s a skill that Anderson has always had, as if he were already a seasoned filmmaker when he made Rushmore.

The framing story of Asteroid City is a black-and-white documentary explanation of a TV play produced in 1955 in which we meet the author (Ed Norton), the director (Adrien Brody), and several of the actors (Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman). In typical Anderson fashion, these characters explain the trials and tribulations of their craft in stylistic ways, but the play itself is presented as a full-color movie. The titular burg is not a city in the strictest sense; more like a crossroads in the Southwest American desert where a few small businessmen have set up shop. During the course of the play, various people come to the town to celebrate Asteroid Day, which commemorates a prehistoric event in which a large piece of extraterrestrial debris crashed to earth in the vicinity. This celebration allows Anderson to introduce an array of characters who are there for different but perfectly plausible reasons, such as an army general (Jeffrey Wright) who is using the celebration to run PR for the military (atomic bomb tests are visible in the distance), a scientist (Tilda Swinton) who is there to explain the significance of the asteroid, and a late middle-aged father (Tom Hanks) who has come to mourn his daughter. This father’s son-in-law (Schwartzman), a war photographer, still hasn’t told his four children that their mother is dead, even as he transports her ashes in a Tupperware container to the desert. Ostensibly, the family is in Asteroid City so that the eldest son (Jake Ryan) can compete for a science scholarship, and in the process he falls into a budding romance with another teen “brainiac,” (Grace Edwards), who is there with her mother (Johansson), a Hollywood star taking a break from the spotlight and, especially, the flashbulbs. 

The core story is the melancholy friendship that blossoms between the movie star and the war photographer, and while one could easily imagine how the finely tuned dialogue, filled with longing and sadness, could make for a fine stage play, in the end these scenes are almost overwhelmed by the sheer volume of action, which is both central and tangential to the core story, carried out by Anderson’s huge cast of big names; but due to Anderson’s inventiveness as a storyteller, they all remain distinct and stimulating, so that even the framing story of the TV play’s production, where the actors playing the photographer and movie star also have a kind of extra-curricular relationship, is vivid and affecting. I still prefer Anderson in a more focused mode of creation (Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox), but his instincts never fail him, even when he takes on too much. 

Opens Sept. 1 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Parco White Cine Quinto (03-6712-7225), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Asteroid City home page in Japanese

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