Asteroid City does not exist. The characters are fictional, the text hypothetical, the events an apocryphal fabrication.

The film begins with a TV host (Bryan Cranston introducing a televised program about the production of a new play, created by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton)

Curtain rises on a desert bus stop halfway between Parched Gulch and Arid Plains. Main scenography includes a 12-stoll luncheonette, a one -pump filling station, and a ten-cabin Motor Court hotel.

Cornrad Earp takes the stage for the first read-though rehearsal and announces the cast of his play which includes war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), his son Woodrow (Jake Ryan), film actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), her daughter Dinah (Grace Edwards), schoolteacher June Douglas (Maya Hawke), ranch hand Montana (Rupert Friend), General Grif Gibson (Jeffrey Wright), Sandy Borden (Hope Davis), Roger Cho (Stephen Park), J. J. Kellogg (Liev Schreiber), Clifford (Aristou Meehan), Ricky (Ethan Josh Lee), Shelly (Sophia Lillis) and Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks).

Augie Steenbeck arrives in a tow truck with his son Woodrow and his three younger daughters Andromeda (Ella Faris), Pandora (Gracie Faris), Cassiopeia (Willan Faris) in his broken car for the Junior Stargazer convention at a tiny town called Asteroid City located near the site of Arid Plains Meteorite where a meteorite fell to Earth approximately 5,000 years ago.

Augie phones his his father-in-law Stanley Zak asking him to come and pick up his grand daughters. Stanley never likes his son-in-law, however, he tries to convince Augie to tell the children about the demise of their mother (Margot Robbie) that Augie hasn’t been able to find the right moment to tell them.

In September 1955, smartest children and their parents are gathering to compete for the $5,000 Hickenlooper scholarship and celebrate Asteroid Day at an annual convention sponsored by the United States Military-Science Research and Experimentation Division and the Larkings Foundation. General Grif Gibson gives his monologue speech.

At the newly refurbished observatory, Woodrow inform Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton) about a pattern of the blips he notices. Dr. Hickenlooper believes it’s just an indecipherable radio emissions from outer space. Woodrow thinks it’s date on the galactic calendar, and the pattern always indicates today’s date.

I think I know now what I realize we are. Two catastrophically wounded people who don’t express the depths of their pain because we don’t want to. That’s our connection. Do you agree?

ASTEROID CITY is visually stunning with intricately crafted world building. (I love the vending machine that sells land.) However, it’s probably one of my least favorite film by Wes Anderson. The stellar cast is amazing but there’s just a lot of things going on, people talking, camera moving, with incredible detail in Wes Anderson’s style.

The film keeps shifting audience’s attention back and forth between two places, although I find the part where the plot that takes place in Asteroid City to be more interesting and enjoyable. The ending is also a bit confusing, it doesn’t deliver emotional satisfaction like his previous films.

ASTEROID CITY at Festival de Cannes on May 23, 2023. The film had its limited theatrical release in the United States on June 16.