Maps to the Stars (2014)

This is Cronenberg at his finest form. Follow his deftly acted palette of characters down their kaleidescopic downward spiral in this self-reflective piece about the steep personal prices of Hollywood. Julianne Moore, John Cusack and Olivia Williams are all in peak form. Relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska delivers a delicately handled career-high performance. Robert Pattinson delivers another solid performance the likes of his efforts in Water for Elephants and The Rover. All round, a superbly poignant sort of dramatic social commentary, if, at that, a disturbing one.

Well written Maps to the Stars engaged me from the first scene. Considering the challenging topics the film navigates, the film covers this uncomfortable territory with ease and grace. I watched the film twice and will probably watch it again. The writing provides a fundamental structure and well formed characters that manages to show the darkness of incest, psychosis, and violence in a tolerable and human way. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. This requires talent on everyone's part. This film is well done in every sense. The facade of the persona is not written as an evil demon and neither is the darkness. Maps to the Stars blends both as simply human qualities. Qualities that are faced by many everyday. However, kept as a forbidden secret. Bravo!

Is Maps to the Stars a dark comedy? A pithy satire? Whatever it is, it's a refreshingly entertaining movie to counter David Cronenberg's prior Cosmopolis, which was so dense and boring I had a hard time believing anyone directed it, let alone one of my favorite directors. Maps to the Stars recalls Mulholland Dr., a noir self- analysis of Hollywood's worst parts.We have John Cusack, who seems to be playing a character that helped him warm up to play the adult Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy, with his brain so addled we're never sure even he knows what he'll do next. And his wife, played by Olivia Williams, is cunning enough to pretend she cares about her son, Benji (Evan Bird), because he's a revenue stream as the teenage star of the Bad Babysitter movies. The funniest moment in film I've seen in a long time is when Benji is filming his Bad Babysitter sequel at a children's camp, where he pulls out a wood knot in the wall to the girls' room and turns to his younger friend, explaining now they can "see everything," which elicits, "Oh, boy! I wanna see her . . . vabina."Bad seeds lead to bad family trees, and the Weiss family started off bad with incest producing rotten offspring. The bad mojo flows down the branches just as it does with the descendants of the mythological Tantalus. Benji is a thoughtless, spoiled brat with nearly no friends, and Agatha is a schizophrenic with murderous tendencies.The movie has a connective poem, Liberté by Paul Eluard, which is an ode to liberty written during the Nazi occupation of France. But in the movie, the poem seems to be a dedication to death as a way to escape a hectic, or even boring, life. The characters all seem filled with a nihilistic dread and an inherent need to put on a happy face for their fans.You can't get old in Hollywood, and if you have trouble, there's pills, therapists, and personal assistants to help. And if you get into trouble, money and power can cover it all up. Or you can end it all just like Romeo and Juliet did.

Maps to the Stars is a relatively strong but somehow disturbing view of the life of Hollywood stars. Although, if that was actually the purpose of the movie, it should have a broader scope and less self indulgence.Anyway...this is the story of a strange family where, without their knowledge, a brother and a sister met, married, and have 2 children, a boy and a girl. The girl sets their house on fire () and they sent her to a far far away clinic until she was 18. Although the family (the 2 parents, and their son who turned to a star child actor) are very successful financially, they are very dysfunctional as a family and as persons.The movie is shot brightly and that is something that I liked, but the pace is inconsistent. Overall it has a surreal feel especially because the purposely blunt performance of Mia Wasikowska.Julianne Moore performance is a little over the top but it is effective. Evan Bird as the 13 yo spoiled child star gives a solid performance.David Cronenberg always tries to provoke, so expect some male frontal nudity, lots of screaming, and you even get to see Julianne Moore ...fart a few times while on toilet with constipation. Also the price for the ...feces of a movie star costs around $3000 each.Overall: For the purpose of showing a glimpse at least of the Hollywood madness this surreal movie is effective. For that purpose though, there are other movies out there, deeper and with more levels than this.