Pre-Apocalyptic Darkness Found in ‘Maps to the Stars’

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CHICAGO – There is a moral darkness in director David Cronenberg’s “Maps to the Stars” that is hard to shake. It is filled with circumstance and souls right at the edge of insanity, polluted by an atmosphere that doesn’t give them much of a chance. The apocalypse is now, and living in Los Angeles.

Julianne Moore is following up her Oscar winning turn in “Still Alice” with another memorable performance, this time as an aging and insecure movie star that has never found the proper nurturing in her life. The rest of the story includes charlatans, rejects, recovering addict child stars and hallucinations – just another day in L.A. There is no exit to these situations, and each of the characters are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The film is a fascinating insight – the original screenplay is by Bruce Wagner – of lost connections and the resulting hopelessness, and the ramifications of denying truth.

A young woman named Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) rolls into Los Angeles, with obvious burn scars and a past she wants to reconcile. It turns out she is the daughter of famous TV psychologist Stanford Weiss (John Cusack), and sister to teen star Benjie (Evan Bird), who has just emerged from addiction rehab. Her driver and confidant is Jerome (Robert Pattison), and they briefly connect.

Julianne Moore
You Can’t Go ‘Om’: Julianne Moore as Havana in ‘Maps to the Stars’
Photo credit: Focus World

There is also a aging movie star named Havana (Julianne Moore), who is pining for role as her mother in a film version of their lives. Through a happenstance, Agatha becomes Havana’s personal assistant, while Stanford is also her therapist. Benjie is having a rough time staying true to his rehab, Stanford is having a rough time seeing Agatha again, and the Los Angeles region is having a rough time providing a safe haven for these vulnerable souls.

Julianne Moore really creates Havana, from her collagen-injected lips to her casual disregard for sanity. The aging actress in show business is a theme explored before in films, but here it takes on a new desperation, and Moore is able to spirit it through both her experience and exaggeration. It’s as if she pretended that her own career took a different path, and Havana is the result.

There are secrets in this story, and they all are based on the most foul darkness imaginable – it’s as if these characters never had a chance, but somehow made it to an environment that doesn’t care, and in fact nurtures that anti-aspirational force. There is the car wreck sound of damaged lives around every corner in this scenario, and the relentless pursuit of the darkness – while realistic, considering their backgrounds – is so bleak as to be off putting.

Besides Moore, Evan Bird gives a defining performance as Benjie, the child-turned-teen-turned-drug-addict movie star, who becomes obsessed that a red-haired moppet is trying to steal his scenes (the fake movie that they are performing is cynically hilarious). He is so relentlessly lost that we wonder if the character learned anything from rehab, or were those small moments of sobriety too much to bear?

John Cusack
All Seeking: Stanford (John Cusack) Makes His Pitch in ‘Maps to the Stars’
Photo credit: Focus World

There is no optimism in this La-La Land, and the character of the environment is also a heavy weight upon the character. Even background characters like Robert Pattinson’s Jerome gets sucked in, and there is a significant shift in the narrative having to do with his non-discretion, that begins a downward spiral. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and no one is feeling anything, much less fine.

So call your grandmother, hug your dog and go out into the pre-spring weather to find some faith. Because in the end it’s not how famous you become, but how much gratitude that is generated in the give-and-take between birth and demise. It’s that in-between time that is crucial in making it out of here alive.

”Maps to the Stars” continued its limited release in Chicago on March 6th, and is currently available through Video-On-Demand. See local listings for theaters, showtimes and VOD channel locations. Featuring Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Evan Bird and Robert Pattinson. Written by Bruce Wagner. Directed by David Cronenberg. Rated “R”

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Writer, Editorial Coordinator
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2015 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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