Wes Anderson’s latest cliché: Asteroid City reviewed

After the screening I attended of Wes Anderson’s latest, Asteroid City, I overheard a couple of critics saying how much they loved his films and what a genius he is, and I was minded to interrupt with: ‘What, even though he’s been making exactly the same film for years now?’ Or: ‘What, even though I kept waiting for it to take a shape and it never did?’ But I was too shy, so I’ll let it all out here. The problem with Wes Anderson films, it now occurs to me, is that they are Wes Anderson films, and my patience has run out.

Asteroid City is a film set within a play that, in turn, is set within a TV documentary, and if this sounds confusing, it’s probably because it is. It has a starry cast that’s not just longer than your arm but longer than the arm of someone who say, has such long arms it’s freakish and they’ve had to join the circus.