ASTEROID CITY serves as something of an artistic statement for this period of Wes Anderson’s filmmaking, overtly discussing existential themes around meaning and, in particular, finding meaning through art that emphasise Anderson’s complicating of modernism and postmodernism. When Adrien Brody’s director character says that the meaning doesn’t matter, he’s talking through the fourth wall to viewers alienated by Anderson’s idiosyncratic aesthetics. ASTEROID CITY tells the viewer not only how to read it but how to read all of Anderson’s work by openly stating that how the viewer approaches his films is critical to how the works produce sincerity with and through their ironic postmodern conceits.
Full reviews available on TAKE ONE (https://takeonecinema.net/2023/asteroid-city/) and Cinetopia podcast (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cinetopia/episodes/JULY-2023-on-EHFM-EDINBURGH-FILM-FEST-PROGRAMME-LAUNCH-PLUS-REVIEWS-OF-MISSION-IMPOSSIBLE--SHABU--and-ASTEROID-CITY-e2731d5).