Asteroid City Review: Critics Call Wes Anderson's Sci-Fi Film an 'Exhilarating Triumph', Say It's 'One of His Very Best Movies'

Asteroid City is easily one of the year’s most anticipated films, and following its Cannes Film Festival premiere, it looks like the Wes Anderson-directorial definitely has live up to the hype. Following the events that transform an annual stargazing convention into an extraordinary event starring Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks and more, critics are labelling the movie as an “extraordinary triumph.” Here are some of the reviews below. Cannes 2023: Asteroid City Stars Maya Hawke and Rupert Friend Happily Dance on Red Carpet While Arriving for Film's Premiere (Watch Video).

The Guardian: "As ever, there is little or no emotional content, despite the ostensible subject of grief. The movie rattles cleverly and exhilaratingly along, adroitly absorbing the implications of pathos and loneliness without allowing itself to slow down. It is tempting to consider this savant blankness as some kind of symptom, but I really don’t think so: it is the expression of style. And what style it is."

IndieWire: "If all of Anderson’s movies are sustained by the tension between order and chaos, uncertainty and doubt, “Asteroid City” is the first that takes that tension as its subject, often expressing it through the friction created by rubbing together its various levels of non-reality. Some might see that as self-amused navel-gazing, but the unexpected moment towards the end when Anderson finds a certain equilibrium between those contradictory forces — with a major assist from a movie star whose name you suddenly remember seeing in the credits some 100 minutes earlier — is so crushingly beautiful and well-earned that the artifice surrounding it simply falls away."

Empire: "Yes, Wes Anderson has — as the jibe goes — made his film again. For some, that’s seen as a negative: that somehow the whimsical Texan auteur is simply a one-trick pony. Certainly, few filmmakers have visual hallmarks so culturally ingrained that they could spark a TikTok trend. But Asteroid City, his 11th feature, proves that making your film again is no bad thing when said film is always beautifully, painstakingly, lovingly crafted to within an inch of its life. (You’d never criticise Picasso for making yet another cube-y painting.) It also demonstrates that Anderson still has the capacity to surprise." Asteroid City: Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie's Multi- Starrer Comedy Film Will Make You Laugh Out Loud, Check Out New Poster.

The Independent: "Even some of Wes Anderson’s most die-hard fans were put off by his 2021 film The French Dispatch, with its three-story structure and stilted, self-conscious evocation of literary France. Anderson hasn’t changed his storytelling technique in the slightest for his new film Asteroid City, which has premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, but his recent detractors will be relieved nonetheless: this is his most enrapturing feature since The Grand Budapest Hotel nearly a decade ago."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 24, 2023 12:44 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).