Review by Tristan Bishop
In the pantheon of Great Horror Directors, David Cronenberg still reigns supreme. Even though he’s moved outside of the genre in the past 25 years or so, every film he’s made has been possessed of a dark, unsettling core. Even A Dangerous Method (2011), ostensibly a historical drama about the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, used the story of the two psychoanalysts as a jumping point to explore the deeper workings of human repression and desire, and 2012’s utterly barking Cosmopolis at times played like a vampire film, with Robert Pattison (inspired casting there) cruising Manhattan in the sealed world of his limousine. With this in mind, even though I had seen Maps To The Stars described as a ‘comedy’ I was willing to bet we weren’t going to be settling in for The Hangover Part 4.
Sure enough this isn’t a laugh-a-minute, feel-good comedy – it’s a critique of Hollywood/celebrity culture with a jet black sense of humour shot through with death, sex and the recurring theme of incest. That Paul Rudd/Cronenberg collaboration still not looking likely, then.
Maps To The Stars focuses on a wealthy Hollywood family. The father, Dr Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) is a self-help guru to the stars, who we are first introduced to as he massages the thighs of fading starlet Havana Seagrand (Julianne Moore) in order to help her exorcise her demons of perceived abuse by her mother, the late megastar Clarice (ha) Taggart (a small appearance by Sarah Gadon, in her third consecutive Cronenberg film). Despite Weiss’ fame as a healer, however, he has a seriously dysfunctional family of his own. His son Benjie (Evan Bird) is a current child superstar fresh out of rehab for hard drugs and working on the sequel to his smash hit comedy Bad Babysitter, whilst their daughter Agatha was sent to a mental institute as a child for attempting to burn down the family home and kill Benjie. It’s not really surprising that they have a messed-up home life; however, as it turns out Mr & Mrs Weiss are actually brother and sister (they only discovered this after becoming a couple, but it didn’t stop them marrying and procreating, apparently). So far, so bad, but now Agatha (the ubiquitous Mia Wasikowska), fire-scarred and fuelled by psychiatric medication, has come back to Hollywood in the hopes of reconciliation with her family. In order to get closer to them Agatha gets a job as a personal assistant to Havana – via her Twitter friend Carrie Fisher (playing herself in a cameo role) – as well as striking up a friendship with aspiring writer/actor Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattison), who is working as a limo driver in the Hollywood Hills.
Unsurprisingly, Agatha’s reappearance isn’t going to lead to a happy resolution for these already damaged characters, and we spend the rest of the film watching them unravel emotionally. Amazingly, despite the way I’ve just made it sound, Maps To The Stars isn’t quite the trudge through misery and human detritus that you could reasonably expect – Hey, this is a comedy, remember? Cronenberg’s humour is as clinical and dark as you might expect, but he shows another side here that is all too rare in his body of work – Humanity. Usually known for eliciting icy, disconnected performances from his actors, the director here has a dream ensemble cast at his disposal, and even though the characters are, on the page at least, utterly detestable, we end up warming to the messed-up, aging starlet (Moore won Best Actress at Sitges for her role here), the scarred pyromaniac with murky intentions, and, best of all, the foul-mouthed, self-absorbed tweenage heart-throb. 14 year-old Evan Bird is frankly incredible in the latter role, giving off a confidence and wisdom well beyond his years, and I’d be very surprised if this film doesn’t lead to huge things from him in the near future (unless of course he goes the way of his onscreen character). The acting tour-de-force is bolstered by a sharp script by Bruce Wagner, who adapts from his own original novel.
One valid criticism of the film is that it doesn’t really tell us anything new – Hollywood is messed-up! Big surprise! Anyone familiar with Sunset Boulevard (1950) knows that this story is nearly as old as Hollywood itself, but the film is so switched-on and culture-literate that it manages to breathe some fresh air into proceedings. Naturally having one of the greatest living directors at the helm helps, and, in working once again with his frequent collaborator Peter Suschitzky on cinematography duties, the film looks stunning too, and the costume design also gets a tip of the hat (notably for Wasikowska’s outfits, including her scar-concealing full-length gloves). But Let’s be honest with ourselves, two explicit Julianne Moore sex scenes, a handful of shocking demises, unexpected toilet humour and even a couple of ghosts (real or imagined) are what stops this film from being a dry amble through tired clichés.
At age 71 Cronenberg is still making films with more edge and style than any director half his age. Long may he continue!