MOVIE NEWS – It is well known that Wes Anderson, considered one of the most original auteur filmmakers of our time, likes to go to the Cannes festival because it is like coming home. European audiences really appreciate his style, as evidenced by the set presentation of the new Anderson film, Asteroid City. When the curtain closed, the audience stood and applauded for six minutes, celebrating the director and the cast.

The film is difficult to define in terms of genre, at first glance it is a dramatic sci-fi comedy. Sometime in the mid-1950s, in an American desert town famous for its nearby asteroid crater, young inventors are celebrated by the military and the astronomer community; but this will not be the main attraction, but the landing of a spaceship with an alien creature on board. The event represents a decisive turning point in everyone’s life. In the meantime, the viewer can gain an insight into the feverish operation of a theater company, they are currently rehearsing a play called Asteroid City in the town, which was closed by the army due to the UFO.

The film, which has an 82 percent rating on the RottenTomatoes review portal, is again about the things that concern Anderson the most: what it’s like when the impossible comes true, how to process being a parent, and when someone mourns, and why it is good to dream when we look up at the starry sky. According to one opinion, Asteroid City, although one of the author’s most entertaining and easy-to-consume works, will not win Anderson new fans, but it will strengthen the existing ones in their faith, because it is the screenwriter-director’s most mature and elaborate work. A worthy spiritual successor to his most praised work, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which received 5 Oscar nominations. IndieWire also notes that Asteroid City is perhaps Anderson’s most poignant work.

According to the sarcastic remark of a critic reporting from Cannes, Asteroid City in other ways is almost like Anderson trying to bring a phone book of Hollywood A-list stars to the screen , since from Tom Hanks to Scarlett Johansson to Willim Dafoe, so many famous actors appear in the film that their names barely fit in the end credits.

(Asteroid City – domestic release: June 15, 2023.)

Source: UIP Dunafilm