Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2023
#4. Asteroid City

Last year saw an interesting trend of films serving as a metaphor for their directors’ careers. Michael Mann’s Ferrari depicted a man relying on corporate funding to execute his vision with the help of a dedicated team that he drives a bit too hard. David Fincher’s The Killer portrayed a ruthless perfectionist tireless in his pursuit of each objective — a fitting topic for a director known for shooting hundreds of takes of even the simplest scenes.

Even Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been read as a metaphor for regrets over the superhero era ushered in by the director’s Dark Knight trilogy — not exactly the atomic bomb, but a pretty seismic and destructive cultural event.

One way to read Wes Anderson’s fascinating Asteroid City is as an exploration — possibly even an explanation — of his distinctive filmmaking style. This is a movie about processing the messiness of life into the elegance of art. If we cram our most complex and contradictory emotions into a meticulously crafted symmetrical frame, can we finally understand them?

Asteroid City suggests that no, we can’t, but the key is that we keep trying.

The film uses the nesting doll structure Anderson has favored since The Grand Budapest Hotel. We see (in black and white) a TV show documenting a stage production about the making of a play called ‘Asteroid City.’ That play is presented to us in beautiful technicolor, and it follows a group of people who have converged on the titular town for a Junior Stargazers convention.

The group consists of a widower, an actress, an elementary school class, a troupe of singing cowboys, a military contingent, scientists, and a quartet of child geniuses (along with their parents). And I’m leaving people out — it’s a huge cast.

That ensemble handles the film’s principal narrative, though most of those characters also have a counterpart in the film’s black-and-white section. It’s all very confusing when trying to write it out, and only slightly less confusing watching it the first time through.

If you choose to enjoy Asteroid City only for the charming story at is center — the tale of the Junior Stargazers convention and what unfolds when an alien ship lands on site — you’re in for a treat. It has all the hallmarks of Anderson’s filmography: clever sight gags, witty dialogue, stop-motion animation, crippling grief. It is also the most aesthetically beautiful movie of the year, filmed in creamy pastels and lit to sun-dappled perfection.

This portion of the film was written during the Covid quarantine, and its plot finds the large cast confined to the small town, forced to confront truths about the universe and themselves. That connection to 2020 makes this fantastical story one of Anderson’s most topical films to date.

But the real meat of this movie lives in the space between the “play” and the backstage drama surrounding its creation. Anderson plays with the relationship between the creators and the work of art, and serves up the same poignant metaphor that Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote “all the world’s a stage.”

“I still don’t understand the play,” one actor says to his director. “It doesn’t matter,” comes the reply. “Just keep telling the story.”

Wes Anderson has been telling stories for almost 30 years, wrapping thoughtful tales of love and loss in the most beautifully intricate packages. Asteroid City isn’t my favorite of his films, but it might be the most important when it comes to understanding what makes him tick as a storyteller and a human being.

It’s another special addition to one of cinema’s most distinctive and creative filmographies.