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It would be hard not to mention the fact that “Asteroid City” was released on the tail end of the “Wes Anderson style” trend on social media. Anderson (“Fantastic Mr. Fox”) himself has commented on the trend (which he says he has only heard about, not seen), saying, “It’s a bit like if you’re told, ‘Your friend does a great version of you.’ Maybe you say, ‘I’d really like to see it,’ and maybe you say, ‘I don’t want to see a version of me, even if it’s good.’ ”
Sadly, “Asteroid City” does feel like a version of Anderson. Of course, it still surpasses anything you’d find on your For You page, but nothing in the film clicks enough to stay with you after it’s done.
At the beginning of the film, we are introduced to the first layer of the plot by Bryan Cranston (“Jerry & Marge Go Large”), who is narrating a black-and-white biopic about the life of a playwright named Conrad Earp (Edward Norton, “Fight Club”). We learn that Earp’s life work culminates in writing “Asteroid City,” and while Earp’s story continues to be interwoven throughout the film, it serves to lead us to the meaty second layer: the town of Asteroid City. 
This layered story allows Anderson to operate at his peak Wes-ness. Though the town is located in the desert, everything is clean. Not a speck of sand coats the white-washed buildings, nor the actors’ clothing. Even the town’s repair shop is spotless, as are the lone mechanic’s hands. It truly does seem like the set of a play — a comical detail that feels both genuine and eerily fake at the same time.
Truly, the only fingerprints to be found around Asteroid City are Anderson’s. Unfortunately, they tend to smudge the picture rather than show the touches of a director who’s proven himself time and time again.
One of the best parts of almost every one of Anderson’s films is when he can make a relatively simple moment feel magical: Mr. Fox and co spotting a wolf in “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Zero and Agatha falling in love on a carousel in “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Max flying a kite in “Rushmore.” Beautiful cinematics combine with emotional moments to make all of these scenes.
Asteroid City has a few of these moments — but they never manifest into anything meaningful. 
After spending the first half of the movie getting to (somewhat) know the large cast of characters, the first of these magical moments appears. A tinkling xylophone in the score alerts the audience that something special is about to happen — and it does. The whole town gathers to watch an eclipse, and for a second, everyone finally feels connected. This felt like Anderson was finally getting to the heart of the film — until it was promptly diverted by a surprise reveal that confuses the plot further.  
Anyone who has seen the long string of actors listed in the film’s trailers knows that Wes Anderson has assembled one of his most star-studded casts for this project. He does have his regulars — Jason Schwartzman (“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”) returns for one of his first starring roles in an Anderson film in over a decade, and other frequent cast members pop up from time to time. Although it’s fun to see everyone here, from Steve Carell (“Despicable Me”) to Maya Hawke (“Mainstream”), they don’t all feel like they belong in Asteroid City. 
One issue is that the audience is constantly being moved through different narratives, shifting between the stories of the characters in Asteroid City, the people playing them and the playwright, whose biography is being narrated by Bryan Cranston. 
Like in his previous film “The French Dispatch,” the problem here is that Anderson is juggling too many eggs to fit into one basket. Too many characters are having their emotional arcs, minor and major, all at the same time. Maybe that’s the point, to show this moment in a small town where people’s messy lives cross — but it still ends up being a jumbled mess of familiar faces. 
The embedded narrative impacts much of the acting as well. While it seems that Anderson often directs his actors to have swift, tight delivery, it is turned up a notch here. The characters played by Schwartzman and Carell feel sharp and unnatural, which, while making sense in context, still doesn’t help with the problem of feeling disconnected from their stories. It is apparent that everyone in “Asteroid City” is acting, and that doesn’t feel like the right directive choice for much of the film.  
It’s getting to know and empathize with characters like Max and Zero and Margot Tenenbaum and Mr. Fox and Steve Zissou that make their respective movies so easy to love. “Asteroid City” just can’t seem to find that element until the very end of the film, but by then it feels underdeveloped and limp.
But then again, that limpness seems to lead to a point Anderson is trying to make. A dead mother, a genius yet socially awkward son, an emotionally lost father, a young school teacher — these are all recurring characters carrying out recurring themes across Anderson’s work. In “Asteroid City,” they play their parts well, so much so that it feels like he has mushed up everything that has come before into a wet clay ball for the audience to mold something out of. There is everything to relate to, but nothing to truly find yourself in. Maybe there are some questions that we can’t look to art to help us answer.
Even with the gravity of those questions, “Asteroid City” is a bit too blurry to be asking it. The rest of the film is peppered with witty jokes, varying performances and oddball plot twists, all of which feel like going through the motions of an Anderson film. By the end of the movie, the audience is left with more questions than answers, and no one character to look to for any sort of understanding of what the point of the last hour and 45 minutes was. “Asteroid City” feels disappointingly forgettable, but fun to watch — much like a Wes Anderson TikTok.
Summer Senior Arts Editor Hunter Bishop can be reached at hdbishop@umich.edu.

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