Asteroid City

Best of Anderson’s post 2020 movies. So far The second of three released as of writing this. The story is fun and quirky as we come to expect from Anderson, but what sells me on this movie is the underlying grief. It really feels like his most recent movies lie heavy on different forms of grief, but this one hits the deepest for me.  The grief in this movie is encompassing, but quiet and subtle. We rarely see tears, we don’t see the long term inability to cope as we do in tenembaums. We don’t get the remembrance of the french dispatch. we get something different- something I didn’t realize I’ve seen so little of.  Its that idea that in our moments of pain we simply have no idea what to do or if we’re doing it right. Why does Augie burn his hand. Just as the actor doesn’t know, I feel our character doesn’t know. The characters grief is so subtle, yet so so loud.  The balance of witnessing the play at the same time we view the backstory we see what underlies the story. Just as the scene where the character gets a bare minimum ounce of closure is cut from the play, we often don’t get that closer we so desperately want. We want what we want from our dead and it will always conflict with the many around us grieving too.  Theres something so personal about the lack of the characters will to oppose the three girls funeral for their mom. They all want to grieve, they need it just as much as the kids, but they know its a battle they cant win. Much of this story hits those notes. They sleep in and dont get their goodbyes. The author dies and we dont get a satisfactory conclusion to his life or story. That is life. You cannot wake up if you don’t fall asleep. You don’t get a choice to disagree, to fight it. It simply is the truth.