Maps to the Stars (2014)

Directed by: David Cronenberg
Country: USA / Canada / others

Movie Review: Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, after the dispensable “Cosmopolis”, brings us a spicy satire about Hollywood film industry, portraying at the same time a dysfunctional family that tries to succeed and find happiness, directly or indirectly, in the world of celebrities and movies. After has burned down her parents’ house, the lunatic Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska) comes out from a psychiatric facility in Florida and returns to LA to make amends with her family. Meanwhile she starts seeing Jerome (Robert Pattinson), a limo driver who aspires to become an actor-screenwriter, and ends up being hired by the unstable actress, Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). The latter does whatever it takes to play her mother’s character in a film. The ghost of the mother occasionally teases Havana who finds a supernatural relation in the arrival of the burn-scarred Agatha whose teen brother Benji Weiss (Evan Bird) is having a huge success in film industry but needs an urgent detox. Their father, Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), is a well-respected analyst and coach with the mission of helping Havana with her disturbed mind. “Maps to the Stars” is simultaneously funny and vulgar, incisive and uneven, always using sarcastic tones that are often taken to the extreme. Who needs to see Julianne Moore farting in the toilet? Or a stoned silly kid shooting his friend’s dog? A provocative, even exaggerated cinema that doesn’t always stick with you for the best motives, exhibiting a very captivating start, but letting us down by the second half. General good performances, though.