While Wes Anderson’s recent rebuttal of a TikTok trend for style homage smacked of good will deficiency, the opening scenes of Asteroid City belie a wicked flair for the self aware. This is all very typical, Russian Doll material from the cinema’s most textbook auteur. An obdurately rectilinear repository for the whimsical, sometimes irksome and unfailingly meticulous. There’s no more emotion here than pretence. Asteroid City, we are told from the off, does not exist: ‘it is an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast’. Many a true word is said in jest and right back and smack a few.
Having been one of the last decade’s most prolific Hollywood stars, Jennifer Lawrence hasn’t half lain low in recent years. Between 2011 and 2017, Lawrence averaged three major releases per annum. Since 2020, the Time 100 listed Oscar winner hasn’t even knocked out one a year. What could coax such a talent back to Tinseltown? In 2019, it was the promise of working with Adam McKay. In 2022, the opportunity to try a hand at film production itself appealed. As for 2023’s No Hard Feelings, which hit cinemas on Wednesday, it was simply the funniest script the star had ever read. Hm.
Where most jukebox musicals weave their nonsense narrative through the best hits of a band with tenuous abandon, Greatest Days stands apart by seeking story in tone and musical resonance. This is the “official” Take That musical. A cinematic translation of The Band, Tim Firth’s modestly successful West End production from some years ago. Three decades of chart smashers thrust gusto into the heart of a surprisingly melancholic story, singing testament to the power of music to change a broken record.
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