Asteroid City

Why watch

Starlit Cine editors

• Best for fans of Wes Anderson's distinctive visual style; he wrote and directed it.
• The cast includes Bryan Cranston, Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson, mixing comedy, drama and science fiction.
• Fairly short at about 1 hour 45 minutes, slow-paced and dialogue-heavy.

Synopsis

Asteroid City is a 2023 American science fiction comedy drama film written, directed, and produced by Wes Anderson, from a story he developed with Roman Coppola. The ensemble cast includes Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, and Jeff Goldblum. Its plot mostly presents a stage play set in a retrofuturistic version of 1955, which follows a Junior Stargazer convention and the unexpected arrival of extraterrestrials and UFOs to the titular town in the American Southwestern desert, which is in close proximity to atomic test sites created after World War II. The play is contexualised through a television documentary following the creation of the show itself, adding a layer of metatextuality.

Adapted from Wikipedia · License CC BY-SA 4.0

Director & cast

• W

  Wes Anderson

  Director

• B

  Bryan Cranston

  Host

• J

  Jason Schwartzman

  Augie Steenbeck

• S

  Scarlett Johansson

  Midge Campbell

• R

  Rupert Friend

  Montana

• H

  Hope Davis

  Sandy Borden

• L

  Liev Schreiber

  J. J. Kellogg

• T

  Tom Hanks

  le beau-père

• T

  Tilda Swinton

  Dr. Hickenlooper