Highlights
- Wes Anderson's film, Asteroid City, is intentionally difficult to follow and requires multiple viewings to fully grasp its themes.
- The play within the movie, also called Asteroid City, lacks clear meaning, which is actually the point of the film.
- Viewers must look past the unclear events and focus on how the characters respond in order to find the true meaning of Asteroid City: accepting and moving on from what is real and creating your own interpretation.
There's a reason Wes Anderson has such a niche fanbase for his films: they're really out there. Sometimes hard to follow, many of his award-winning movies require multiple viewings in order for viewers to fully grasp the story and its themes. But with his 2023 film Asteroid City, the difficulty of grasping the theme plays into the theme itself.
The argument can be made that Asteroid City is Anderson's most "meta" movie, as it can easily be related to his own style of filmmaking. At least with films like The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, there's a clear sequence of events that play off the ones before them. With Wes Anderson's latest installment, however, the story bounces around so much, between reality, behind the scenes, and within the play, which is Asteroid City, the story can get jumbled and the meaning behind it can be hard to find.
But that's just the point. Wes Anderson wants viewers to look past the parts that don't hold clear meaning in order for them to find the true meaning. In other words, the play within the movie having no meaning reveals the meaning of the film. A little confusing, but an in-depth look should clear things up.
What Is Asteroid City About?
Asteroid City | |
|---|---|
Director | Wes Anderson |
Writers | Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola |
Cast | Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Edward Norton, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Bryan Cranston, Jake Ryan, Adrien Brody, Steve Carell, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum |
Release Date | June 15, 2023 |
Runtime | 105 minutes |
RT Critic Score | 75% |
RT Audience Score | 62% |
Where to Watch |
Asteroid City tells two stories: the writer, director, and cast members of a play, and the play itself, titled Asteroid City. Each storyline is differentiated by the color scheme of the scenes -- with reality being in black and white, and the play being in color. The play is written by a man named Conrad Earp, and directed by a man named Schubert Green. Throughout the film, it shows Earp recruiting the cast for his play, cast members' auditions, the personal lives of those involved, and the actors trying to figure out what Asteroid City is about.
The play, however, follows a family of five -- Augie, his son Woodrow, and his daughters Andromeda, Pandora, and Cassiopeia -- as they travel to Asteroid City for a junior stargazer's convention on behalf of Woodrow's invitation. Upon their arrival, Augie reveals to the kids that their mother had recently passed away after battling an illness, something they were unaware of for days before the start of the story, but Augie was.
The rest of the play shows the other students participating in the junior stargazer's convention, and a show put on by the city where they enter a crater where an asteroid once hit, with the asteroid being on display for everyone to see. Suddenly, as everyone is watching a solar eclipse, an alien flies down and takes the asteroid before abruptly leaving. The city and military go into quarantine and try to keep the events under wraps, but to no avail. After the chaos stops, and the military gathers everyone together to tell them they may return home, the alien returns the asteroid and leaves once again. The families then fight back against the military, but Augie steps out of the scene, back into reality, and confronts the director, pleading for the answer to what the play is supposed to mean. He gets no answer, because Conrad Earp, the writer, was killed in a car accident, and Augie returns to finish the play.
How Does Asteroid City Have "No Meaning"?
The meaning of the play is lost on viewers, and even the characters, leaving everyone confused about what the events within the play have to do with any sort of theme. For example, the alien comes down and takes the asteroid, just to return days later to give the asteroid back, never saying one word or giving any hint at the sort of motivation behind its actions. So, all the fictional characters of the play are left confused.
Reality draws a parallel when Conrad Earp dies. The actors, especially the one portraying Augie, are lost in what the point of the play is. But the only one who would truly know the meaning of the play is gone, never having left behind the answer to their dire questions.
The shared theme between the two is that they aren't meant to understand, or at least understand from the source itself in which they are uncertain. The alien is gone, presumably never returning. So, whatever they wanted with the asteroid or whatever they did with the asteroid in their possession will forever remain a mystery. Same with the play itself, since Conrad Earp is gone, there's no one to ask about what the play means, leaving everyone involved with two options: create their own meaning based on their own intuition, or accept they will never understand it.
What's the True Meaning of Asteroid City?
This is tricky to explain. VIewers have to look past the actual events that transpired, and look at how the characters respond instead. In the reality of the film, the man who played Augie seemingly fell in love with Conrad. In the play, he was married and had five children. In both cases, he is grieving the death of someone he loved, not being able to accept the reality of his situation. He is left confused and helpless in both scenarios: not knowing how to be a single parent and not knowing the meaning of the play.
In one scene towards the end of the film (and play), Augie storms off the stage and finds the director, Schubert Green, pleading for an answer to whether he's playing the character right. Schubert tells him he is, suggesting that he didn't become his character, but his character became him. Augie supports this, saying that he is authentically feeling all the sorrow that his character is feeling in real life. Augie references a line from his son, Woodrow, where he contemplates the meaning of life, and his answer is, "Maybe there is one." That quote in and of itself can sum up the entire concept that the movie is trying to convey: maybe there's meaning, maybe not, the only meaning we can be certain of is what we make meaning of. Augie confesses to Schubert he still doesn't understand the play, and Schubert responds:
Doesn't matter. Just keep telling the story. You're doing him right.
Augie leaves Schubert and goes on a smoke break, where he runs into the actress that was supposed to portray his wife, but her one scene was cut from the play. The scene was inside Augie's dream where the two meet on a moon of the planet that the alien is from. The actress recounts the dialogue from the scene:
You say, "Did you talk to the alien?" I say, "Not yet." You say, "Why not? I thought for sure you would've yelled at him or made him laugh." I say, "Or asked him the secrets of the universe?" You say, "Exactly." I say, "I think he's shy." You say, "So's Woodrow, but I'm sure he'll grow out of it. I mean, at least I hope he will, without a mother." I say, "He's a late bloomer, but maybe I think you'll need to replace me." You say, "What? Why? How? I can't." I say, "Maybe I think you'll need to try. I'm not coming back, Augie." Then you take a picture of me and start crying, and I say, "I hope it comes out."
Augie responds, "And I say, 'All my pictures come out.'" This scene solidifies the meaning behind the film, which is the need to accept the grieving process so that you can move on. A line later comes up in the movie that the cast members repeat in a sort of cult-ish mantra, saying, "You can't wake up if you don't fall asleep." This further backs up Augie's state of mind, because it mirrors the idea that he can't move on if he doesn't accept reality and embrace the grieving. The play ends with Augie receiving a P.O. box address from a woman he met in Asteroid City named Midge Campbell.
So, what's the true meaning behind Asteroid City? Accepting and moving on from what is real, and not dwelling on what you don't understand, because the meaning of something that has no meaning comes from the meaning you take from it yourself. And that's all that matters.