Review: Maps to the Stars

Released: 2^nd October

Certificate: 18

Director: David Cronenberg

Screenwriter: Bruce Wagner

Cast: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Evan Bird, John Cusack, Olivia Williams, Robert Pattinson

Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), an eighteen year old Floridian with mild burn scars, arrives in Los Angeles, setting off a twisting and cataclysmic chain of events.  She begins working for Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), an ageing actor seeking to re-establish her credibility by taking a role as her late movie star mother Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon), who may or may not have molested her as a child, in an upcoming biopic. Segrand works through these painful memories in the company of masseuse and motivational speaker Dr Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) who, along with shrewd but caring Christina (Olivia Williams), parent child star brat Benjie (Evan Bird), who is newly sober and struggling to secure his next movie deal.

In Maps… Cronenberg and Wagner revel in crafting a tale of isolation, alienation and madness. Several of the characters are haunted by the apparitions of dead children or dead parents, but it is Wasikowska’s creepy Agatha that appears to be the real harbinger of doom, although arguably the film’s message that no bed is messier than the one we make for ourselves, no matter which handy scapegoat we blame our destruction on. Underscored throughout by a poetical incantation lifted from the bizarre black-and-white movie that made Taggart’s name, which is repeated by various characters, the ensemble seem to be themselves drawing down the oblivion that is hurtling towards them. The film’s title is a good example of its sardonic humour: despite the eponymous maps, Hollywood’s stars (and the film’s characters) remain as distant as the celestial ones. The directorial quirk of never having more than one actor in frame unless absolutely necessary further enhances this. Characters perform outwards from centre frame, like a prison mugshot, and the audience is drawn in, the camera subjecting the stars to the same scrutiny that they crave and fear in equal measure.

It is undeniable that this all adds up to a potent atmosphere, supported by well-observed dialogue (particularly between Benjie and his party-addled friends) and some remarkable performances. Olivia Williams brilliantly walks the line her character has drawn between love for a flawed creation and the need to protect the life she has painstakingly constructed out of the literal and figurative ashes of her former one. Christina’s panic is palpable and brilliantly played. Julianne Moore throws herself into Havana Segrand’s neuroses, managing to produce a character who is overly dramatic without the acting itself becoming pantomime, and Mia Wasikowska (as usual) makes everything look easy.

However, despite many admirable aspects, the film revels a little too much in its own nastiness, spiralling into destruction with no clear point. This renders what could be a whip-smart critique of fame and celebrity oddly ho-hum. Pattinson’s limo-driving Wagner cipher is also weirdly vestigial, an unnecessary straight man to the howling, grease-painted clown that is the main plot, and he is unfortunately out-acted by both Moore and Wasikowska in the scenes he shares with them.

Populated by improbable occurrences and fascinating grotesques, Cronenberg’s latest is a wry meditiation on Hollywood’s cynicism and self obsession.

Verdict: 3/5

Image credit: http://mapstothestarsfilm.com/