Asteroid City

This is a film full of confectionary flourishes, but it centres around grief, and in its peculiar manner it takes on the pains of existence in a beautifully melancholic way.

Colourful and imaginative Wes Anderson whimsy.

The film is, for the most part, a delight. I would never miss a Wes Anderson movie, and I encourage anyone looking for something offbeat and original to go and see Asteroid City.

As usual, I marvelled at the richly furnished nature of Anderson’s imagination, but I couldn’t help looking back on earlier, simpler times in his career.

For all of [ASTEROID CITY'S] artists – including Anderson, of course – the only way to deal with the chaos and uncertainty is to "just keep telling the story."

As ever, the mannered speech and meticulous framing lend a certain unreality to the proceedings — to say nothing of the brightly saturated image — but it's hardly style for style's sake.

Revolving around an astronomy convention in a desert town, the film unleashes a symmetrical retro-futuristic drama that’s as good as it is good-looking.

While Asteroid City successfully delivers a witty comedy, it does not manage to reach the level and complexities of other Wes Anderson films. Is it an enjoyable film regardless? Very much so. But is it Wes Anderson’s best? Perhaps not this time.

With its over-saturated pastel desert landscapes and impeccably blocked compositions, Asteroid City foregrounds inauthenticity.

Anderson’s latest is near impossible to watch without a grin and is the outcome of utterly enchanting filmmaking from start to finish.