Remember the desperation and insanity of Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard? And the hatred and meanness of Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson toward her once cinema star sister played by Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Of course, there’s also the ferocity of Faye Dunaway as, precisely, Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. Something in the same vein transpires in the scenarios of David Lynch’s maddening Mulholland Drive and Robert Altman’s ruthless The Player. Through these prisms, Hollywood is surely no pretty sight.
All these films depict sickening families (be them via blood ties or only symbolical) that won’t (because they can’t) deal with failure, oblivion and loss. These families go to extremes to recover what cannot be recovered, to have what they wish for at any cost, and to turn others into the victims of their insatiable cravings. They maybe next of kin, but they are predators.
Many traces of these individuals inhabiting Tinseltown are alive and well in David Cronenberg’s masterful new film Maps to the Stars, a merciless combination of extremely black comedy, devastating Greek tragedy, violent satire and eerie ghost story. Cronenberg looks back into the history of cinema to make new meanings for a fresh discourse on the miseries of the ever-dysfunctional family of Hollywood. A culture that eats up young actors and then spits them out, as stated by John Cusack, one of the film’s actors.
Cusack effortlessly plays Stafford Weiss, a self-help new age media guru with a secret shared with his wife Cristina, also a greedy mother-agent, played to superb effect by Olivia Williams. They have an obnoxious star son, a small monster named Benjie, who cashes bundles of money and is played with icy coolness by Evan Bird. There’s also Agatha, a burn-scarred teen played by Mia Wasikowska with an air of mystery, who returns to Los Angeles after a long hiatus and soon befriends limo driver Jerome, the kind of ordinary guy stars like to sleep to show they also live in the real world. Cronenberg must be the only director who can make Robbert Patinson give a truly good performance, even if he’s a mere driver.
Thanks to the help of her friend Carrie Fisher, Agatha lands a job as a “chore whore” or personal assistant for Havana Segrand, a mean fading diva who knows no boundaries when it comes to getting a role she so needs, which is no less than playing her real life mother (a dead and famous Hollywood legend who died in a fire) in a remake of one of her most renowned films. Incidentally, her mother also abused her as a child too. Havana is a demanding part for which Julianne Moore proudly won the Best Actress Prize at Cannes.
Maps to the Stars is scary. It shows the horror that lies beyond the surface, and the mould of black of comedy is perfect to enhance it. Incest is not an extraordinary circumstance, be it real or metaphorical. In one way or another, ghosts from the past relentlessly come back to haunt the living. Eventually, out of the blue, comes mayhem and a growing series of tragedies. And you are a prisoner once again. But this time it’s for good.
Panic-stricken, the members of these families, these falling stars, run but they cannot hide. They take desperate measures, because they think any exit is good enough to feel safe once again.
In all his wisdom, Cronenberg doesn’t cast a facile moralistic point of view upon this ugly panorama. That would’ve been too easy. Instead, he opts to expose what can be seen at first glance, then reveal what’s buried, and finally confront you with the whole picture. It doesn’t get any more disturbing.
Production notes:
Maps to the Stars (Canada, 2014) Directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Bruce Wagner. With Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, John Cusack, Olivia Williams, Carrie Fisher, Evan Bird. Cinematography : Peter Suschitzky. Editing: Ronald Sanders. Running time: 111 minutes.
