Movies I didn’t like: Asteroid City

I have been thinking of writing about the movies I see as a way of motivating myself to go to the cinema more often, so here we are. Nice to start with a movie I hated.

I think this was the third time in my life I left the cinema before the end of the movie – something I don’t like doing at all. The previous ones being Birdman (looks like I have strong opinions over “the shallow and the pretentious”) and an unnamed American horror movie of the “teens lost in the woods” type.

By the way – this is unfair to the random American horror movie as it did what it said on the tin with great honesty.

Let me try to see if I can summarise what is wrong about Asteroid City by using quotes of the online reviews of people that liked it:

Reading those was fun, I should do this more often.

I don’t usually like when people drop reviews without finishing the material to review (some concession can be given when speaking of food) and at some point I will go back to it, but what a slog!

I am not a combative critic of Wes Anderson. I liked the Tenenbaums, I kind of enjoyed Royal Budapest Hotel – little do I remember of those – but this is a giant misstep. If you cannot pull out of the hat an interesting movie even with Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson, you’re beyond redemption.

Take the reviews above – and I don’t want to partake in mockery of random people as that is a hobby best enjoyed solo – but they enjoy the “quirkiness”, the taste of bizarre (more on that later) – or straightaway they like Wes and no harm in that. I added Mr Mister excerpt because it was too great to be left out.

The author (and writer, I gather) seemed to have great pretenses for this movie. The story (within a story within a story) attests to it – but I think this is more telling of what audience  Wes Anderson went out to please (its industry – rings a bell?).

The quirkiness… is just same-y all over, with some mild out of placeness, use off mildly outlandish or nerdy vocabulary – but never in a really norm-challenging way. It’s sanitised quirkiness to elicit a chuckle.

Or at least I think some lines are meant to elicit a chuckle. Here it is not even the usual real lack of ability to convey emotion – is the old dog that got lost in its own one trick: an actor delivers a witty-sounding line slightly inappropriate with context and with a physicality that expresses deliberately lack of emotions. What are we even meant to feel as spectators in that moment (nothing? amused? compassionate?) is not clear – but overall not deemed important.

And of course, there are saturated colors. Those kind of clothes that I would say from the 50s but what-do-i-know (but those, the sandals, the short trousers, the shirts – those). People are tastefully arranged and move about in slightly funny yet orderly ways. Are you ok to go to the cinema for that?

It seems to me that, when a derivative such as the excellent “Accidentally Wes Anderson” account has more to give than the original it’s derived from, perhaps it’s time for a change.