Asteroid City

Wes Anderson’s precise, symmetrical, planimetric compositions, the most readily identifiable hallmark of his cinema, can be traced to the filmmaker’s passion for the theatrical—per actor Jeffrey Wright, one of many Anderson veterans returning to the fold for Asteroid City, the director uses his frame as “a kind of cinematic proscenium.” Theatricals, amateur and otherwise, abound in Anderson’s films: Max Fischer’s productions in Rushmore (1998) and Margot Tenenbaum’s in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001); the role played by Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde in Moonrise Kingdom (2012); and the Knoblock Theatre staging that ends the “Revisions to a Manifesto” section of The French Dispatch (2021).