Glenn Weldon (3:35)

I see what you did there because.

Chris Klimek (3:36)

In every Wes Anderson movie, we're usually circling around to a core of loss of regret. You know, some somber undercurrent beneath all of these wonderful jokes, visual jokes, verbal jokes, set pieces. Keith Phipps pointed this out in his review on his substack, the reveal that he shares with Scott Tobias about how this Wes Anderson movie does not have a point like the bout from Asteroid City, where we get a very brief but profound kind of summing up of everything that the rest of the movie is swimming in this film, even though it is. Yes, there are many of his familiar themes. There's a father daughter reconciliation. There's a sort of a moral guy, arguably maybe becoming a slightly more human person. But it doesn't all come together in that profound, recognizable way. So I enjoyed it very much. But, yeah, I'm left with that question that Wendy's asked us in 1984, where's the.

Glenn Weldon (4:31)

I mean, you say recognizable. Some would say human. Where's the human connection here? But what do you think, Parker?

B.A. Parker (4:37)

I mean, I thought for a Wes Anderson film, it was like right down the middle. Like, it is a very taut. Like he has a very specific aesthetic. That is, at this point, he's like a well oiled machine when it comes to how his world and how these films are constructed. I was gonna say he's like a sentient corduroy shoe. Like I get. I know what I'm getting, but it's also just like I wanted. It's so, like tightly orchestrated, but also rang a bit hollow for me because there is like this very surface level approach to what we were experiencing. Even though, you know, there are like these existential questions that are hovering over this like very taut story.

Glenn Weldon (5:21)

Yeah, look, I think going forward, I may need to recuse myself from reviewing Wes Anderson films because I certainly don't think they're critique proof. I don't think that. I kind of feel like they might be critic proof if the critic in question is me. I mean, I don't know. I have been reading these reviews which are very mixed. And you know, that's happened over the years. A lot of his reviews are mixed. And I nod my head vigorously whenever I, you know, hear from any detractor. Right. I get what they're saying. He's mannered, he's twee, he's fussy. His films are puzzle boxes or dioramas. They're contrived, they're emotionally cold. I would say this film goes further than being cold. I think it's kind of emotionally Kelvin zero for me. There's something a little self satisfied in his films, right. A little patrician, elitist, snooty maybe. But I am a sucker. Not for necessarily these individual films, but for the pursuit that's involved. Does that make sense? Like the construct of it all? Yeah, I mean that we both talked about it. The intellectual and aesthetic pursuit of creating this very singular world. This facade, people ding the facade. I like this little pocket universe that he and only he exists in. And when I read, you know, the critics and regular Joes complaining about how there's a sameness here. I mean, Miyazaki has a sameness. Like this is the sandbox this guy's playing in. As you both alluded to, he's his own genre. So you get the bad dad, the disillusioned daughter, the fumbling suitor, the mannered speech, the stillness, the symmetry. Fine. But you know what? In opera they sing a lot. So I can't. This is why I feel like I might need to just remove myself from the critical pursuit of reviewing these films just because I wouldn't place them this. That said, I wouldn't place this in my top five. Maybe not even My top ten. This is a comedy. I didn't laugh once.

B.A. Parker (7:08)

That's got a. I did laugh.

Glenn Weldon (7:10)

I mean, I did have a big, goofy grin on my face throughout. And if I had to point or try to figure out why, maybe it was that the plot device at the center of this particular film, which is visiting each investor one at a time, was so mechanical. Because it's advice. Right. That it doesn't even faint toward the notion that plot grows out of character and real human interaction. It just feels like infrastructure laid over top of structure. I don't know. I just rolled over and wanted it to scratch my tummy, and it did.

Chris Klimek (7:46)

Yeah. I'm wearing my Wes Anderson character T shirt here. And I noticed when I put it on that there is actually a loose thread, like, hanging out to one side, which I feel is, like, the kind of thing that should not exist in the Wes Anderson universe.

B.A. Parker (7:56)

I mean, I agree in that it's like pizza. You can never go wrong with any kind of pizza. Controversial opinion. I don't care for Grand Budapest Hotel.

Glenn Weldon (8:06)

Sure.

B.A. Parker (8:06)

I love the French Dispatch.

Glenn Weldon (8:07)

Okay.

B.A. Parker (8:08)

And also, I'm fully aware that I am not the target audience for Wes Anderson film. As, you know, a young black woman. I go see them anyway. There is an earnestness in the pursuit. I love that he's created this kind of actor's gang that he can rely on time and time again, which, I mean, side note, I'm so shocked that this is Michael Cera's first time in Wes Anderson film when he fits so perfectly in that universe.

Glenn Weldon (8:35)

Absolutely.

B.A. Parker (8:36)

And, like, you know, a younger me was like, oh, this reminds me of him in, like, Youth and Revolt. This is so cool. He was the most delightful part of the film for me and the part that shone the most because he gets to have the most fun, I think, besides maybe Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks playing basketball.

Glenn Weldon (8:55)

Right.

B.A. Parker (8:55)

But I can also want more. You know what? As a person who, like, I know that he is currently in his mid century short story bag, it's like he wants to be in the, like, John Cheever and Roald Dahl and you know what? Live your life. But also, you know, you can have your aesthetic, but also move that aesthetic forward.

Glenn Weldon (9:13)

Exactly.

B.A. Parker (9:14)

Do you feel like he has, like, been this locked in and stuck in this, like, aesthetic spot? He can't, like, grow it.

Chris Klimek (9:19)

The mid century thing is something I wanted to bring up as I was trying to think about when the last time Wes Anderson made a film set in the present day was and even, you know, like, the present of Rushmore or Tenenbaums. Yeah. Like it still never feels like our present. Right. It does feel like this hermetic world, but you know, this film is set in the 50s. Asteroid City is in the same period. That might be telling in a way. Right. It's just, it's another level of remove, another fantasy. Right. Because the past is a foreign country. You know, it's beyond all of us.

Glenn Weldon (9:53)

Right.

Chris Klimek (9:53)

We can't get there.

Glenn Weldon (9:54)

We certainly can't. Okay, so after the break, we'll talk about some of the standout performances.

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Glenn Weldon (11:47)

Welcome back. Look, there's gonna be a lot of people talking about how just was your point, Parker? Michael Cera seems like he's always been in a Wes Anderson film. Like he brings a bit of Wes Anderson to every project he's in. Yeah, he's always the caretaker at the Overlook, right? But I want to talk a little bit about Riz Ahmed in this film. This is also his first Anderson film and that is not a pairing I saw coming because Ahmed, to me is a much more down to earth, I don't know, bodied, emotionally available creature of physicality. He's got such emotional vulnerability and soulfulness.

Chris Klimek (12:24)

I think that was a part that called for an actor that has his kind of presence, you know, that he's a prince. He's a regal figure, more or less. I mean, I think he has the right kind of presence for that. Truly. It's not a showcase for him the way something like Sound of Metal is, of course. But I think he is well deployed here. I actually love the brief Cranston and Hang segment as these two potential investors are just a couple of jocks who want to settle this question of who's going to pay for the gap, the floating financial loss that is sort of the MacGuffin in this movie with a little too on 2B ball. I don't know who I think was secretly a jock. Maybe in their former life, maybe Cranston. But I thought all that was very fun and I was here for it.

Glenn Weldon (13:06)

British actor Richard Ayoadi. He plays the terrorist leader Sergio. He was in Wes Anderson's universe before in the short film the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. But that is another guy who. It makes me happy that I didn't realize there was a Richard Ayoade shaped hole in the Wes Anderson filmography and that has been filled. This is a guy who feels like he belongs here. Let's talk about Mia Threpleton, because, I mean, this is the first thing I've really seen her in. She is playing a familiar Anderson type of the kind of disillusioned, laconic woman. Young woman.

Chris Klimek (13:40)

Yeah. She's kind of the Margot Tenenbaum in this. Right.

B.A. Parker (13:42)

I think she as the nun, I thought she was funny. I thought her face had such presence that when you're a nun and your habit is covering everything, but like you have to have a face card to be able to do what Wes Anderson wants.

Glenn Weldon (13:57)

That's right.

B.A. Parker (13:58)

I felt like she was really going toe to toe with Benicio Del Toro character, which can like in the pantheon of disaffected patriarchs who needed to grow heart. Like this is like Royal and Margot Tenenbaum. You need someone to be able to be that parallel, that mirror for this formidable actor and this formidable figure. And I thought that she did a great job.

Chris Klimek (14:21)

Yeah. Anderson seems to pick up a new player with each film. Even if it's someone who's like in the case of Benicio Del Toro, who really comes on his own in the Anderson company with this film. He was in the French Dispatch, but in a much smaller, much less verbal role. So here's the guy this time in the same way, like, we picked up Tom Hanks in Asteroid City and carry him along. And I love that. I hope we'll get another small but memorable part for him in the next Wes Anderson movie. But for me, I did not have any prior sense of Ms. Thruppleton. I hadn't seen her in anything before. I thought she was great, but I wasn't bringing in any baggage the way I am with Benicio Del Toro, who. I mean, he was in the usual suspects 30 years ago. I mean, dude's been around, and I feel like he was still showing me something of him that I hadn't seen from him before. In this.

B.A. Parker (15:12)

No, I was thinking about that when watching it. There was a scene where it's like, it's him and Jeffrey Wright, and I immediately think of Basquiat, and I was like, oh, these two incredible character actors in a totally different world are having this moment. And I was really excited about that.

Glenn Weldon (15:27)

There is a thread to this film that we haven't talked about yet, which is about Zsa Zsa's visions of heaven. This group of actors that we see up there as the biblical tribe. There's a prophet, there's an angel, there's Zsaza's dead first wife. I was surprised by that. And at first I thought it was a bit. And it kind of. It's not. Not a bit. Right. I mean, like, I think of him as a ruthlessly secular filmmaker. Do those moments come off, like, a bit, or do they come off as sincere ultimately for you?

B.A. Parker (15:57)

I mean, I think that along with Asteroid City, where there's, like, the acting troupe who's trying to have this, like, existential, earnest conversation that's in black and white. And I feel like that's kind of happening here, where maybe Anderson is trying to figure out something for himself and we're just all along for the ride. So I went along with it as, like, an earnest pursuit. Even if that is where we get, like, an Ernest Anderson, that's where we get, like, grief and all that. But it has to be a stuff removed and in black and white for him to be able to capture it and understand it.

Glenn Weldon (16:36)

Right.

Chris Klimek (16:37)

I feel like questions of sincerity kind of don't apply to us. Anderson, you know, I don't think he's ever put a frame of anything that he doesn't fully believe in on screen. The technical mastery, the aesthetic, stuff like that. He means that with his whole heart. So asking whether like, these little interstitial sequences that are, for example, black and white in a film that's otherwise color. Whether he's really baring his soul to us or whether he's being ironic or distant or mocking, like, I just know. I feel like he means all of it.

Glenn Weldon (17:06)

The reason I'm asking about these visions of heaven is that they feed into what is, at the end of the day, a redemption arc for this main character, who is a billionaire. He's a munitions guy. He is active in a slave trade. Is this a protagonist for today? Is this somebody we can kind of get behind? Is this supposed to be. We're supposed to get behind?

B.A. Parker (17:24)

I mean, we're kind of stuck in the world of, like, thinking of, like, the White Lotus in succession, where it's rich people behaving the way that they behave, and we kind of, like, get on the bus or off it. But, like, maybe that's evolving. Maybe things are changing and we, like. Maybe this is, like, the tipping point, and we are less likely to embrace these kind of characters. But I also think that's gonna. That might limit Anderson's storytelling.

Glenn Weldon (17:56)

Yeah. Because it does seem like this is a bit further than we've gotten before. Right. We've had irascible grumps like Royal Tenenbaum. We've had bad guys. We've had bad dads aplenty. Have we had murderers?

B.A. Parker (18:10)

Have we had murderers?

Chris Klimek (18:12)

I mean, I'm thinking about, where did the whole Marvel project start off? It started with Iron Man. Right. Which. A story of an arms dealer and a guy who, you know, has a, you know, forced into a moral awakening and tries to make amends by being a superhero, I guess. And, you know, in sort of predictable fashion, Zsa Zsa Korda, he does get his comeuppance. So, you know, we can ask whether that is a reflection of his own inner moral evolution or just of, you know, circumstances being imposed upon him. But again, I don't. I don't think the movie has to tell us that. I think it's okay for us to make our own decision about that.

Glenn Weldon (18:43)

Yeah. And to your point, maybe what I'm reacting to is events outside the film, right. Where billionaires are acting with impunity. And that doesn't seem to me like the kind of character, the kind of person who should get off. Spoiler. As free as this guy gets off, maybe that's it. And that's not fair to the film.

Chris Klimek (19:03)

I think what I disagree with you about is I don't think the film lets him off the hook in quite the way that you're suggesting, no?

Glenn Weldon (19:09)

Oh, Parker, settle the difference here. Who's right?

B.A. Parker (19:12)

I think he gets what he gets, and it's more about softening his heart than his wallet. And inevitably he gets both.

Glenn Weldon (19:22)

Yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying. Look, this is a very dense film. We have a lot to unpack here. There's only so much we can get to. There's this whole thread about Liesel's mother's death we haven't really touched on listeners. I feel like we've only just loosened the lid of the jar. Now it's your turn to tell us what you think about the Venetian scheme. Find us on Facebook@facebook.com PCHH and on Letterboxd@letterboxd.com NPRpopculture we'll have a link in our episode description and that brings us to the end of our show. BA Parter Chris Klimmick, thank you so much for being here.

Chris Klimek (19:54)

Thank you, Glenn.

B.A. Parker (19:54)

Thanks for having me.

Glenn Weldon (19:56)

This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathoma and Mike Katsif and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Audio engineering was performed by Sino Lofredo and hello, Come in provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from npr. I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all next time.

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