User reviews are usually bullshit nonsense, no matter how intellectual they seem, particularly where films like those of Anderson are concerned. The old cliché states 'if critics knew anything about making films, they'd be making them, not merely talking about them'. That aside, the average moviegoer isn't functionality intelligent enough to understand a film as layered and as complex as Asteroid City.

I'm not really into philosophy, so I look at Wes Anderson's films in this way - many of his shots appear designed to mimic the aesthetic of paintings in the style of Edward Hopper, Norman Rockwell, Grant Wood and others who influenced American culture in the early to mid 20th Century. In essence, I think he's trying to visually evoke a 'golden age' and then use the dysfuctions of the characters in his narratives to complete dismantle the various myths of a golden era we hold dear. In my mind, it feels as if he's asking us to think deeper so that we can overcome some of our collective delusions about life and history in Western society, so that we can get to work on building a future that lives up to the promise of a 'golden' era.