It’s de rigueur for Hollywood satires to portray the conversations and mindsets of actors and the entertainment elite as painfully superficial and Maps to the Stars is no exception. But in this film, the product of a world-class meeting of misanthropes in director David Cronenberg and writer Bruce Wagner, the characters cling to the surface of their psyches because lurking underneath is a coal-black darkness that will easily envelop them if not kept at bay. Cronenberg and Wagner cut characters from the cloth of TMZ and Us Weekly and plop them into a twisted and terrifying Jacobean tragedy, crafting what is probably the darkest movie about Hollywood ever made.
Maps to the Stars tells the intertwining stories of an ensemble that at first seem only tangentially related, but eventually are implicated together in a terrible secret. There’s Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), a shy and excited Hollywood newcomer (or is she?), who would fit the role of ingénue if not for the terrible burns she keeps hidden under gloves, along with some other secrets. There’s Havana (Julianne Moore), an actress past her prime fighting to stay relevant; in her private life, she’s an emotional parasite, a monster of naked need and ego. There’s Stafford (John Cusack), a therapist to the stars and a guru proselytizing a vague doctrine of self-help, and diabolically protective of his son’s fame and fortune. His son Benjie (Evan Bird) is a Bieber-esque grotesque, a 13-year old megastar cynical and entitled beyond his years, struggling to get his career going again after rehab.
The film is hilarious at its onset – full of cutting one liners, disgusted name drops, and blatant disregard for human decency - and remains so throughout, even as the laughter begins to catch in your throat as the characters reveal themselves to be disturbing sociopaths. The characters struggle to remain in an eternal present of consumption and satiation because any looks backwards lead to an abyss. Maps to the Stars is a film filled with ghosts, whether they’re still alive, such as Agatha, whom Stafford thought he had erased from his family’s life, or long dead, such as Havana’s mother, a more talented, yet personally abusive, cult figure who died young and whose signature role Havana is vying for in a remake. Also floating through the film like an echo is Paul Eluard’s poem Libertè, the words of which take on different meanings as different characters recite it.
The cast deserves credit for playing these modern gargoyles with 100% commitment, without ever winking to the audience to assure them that actors aren’t really so awful. Moore’s part is the most colorful, plumbing untold depths of insecurity and neediness, which she does with characteristic excellence, but Bird is the biggest surprise, playing a character so insulated and alienated that he seems surprised when any sort of real feeling bursts into his consciousness. Cronenberg directs with trademark precision, allowing moments of humor and horror, but for the most part keeping the tone in an uneasy middle ground of the two. Wagner’s script is excellent; the dialogue is perfect and he’s a keen observer of details, particularly the kind so terrible they must be true.
Maps to the Stars is a chilling and thrilling film, even more so for being all too recognizable. Cronenberg has given Hollywood a poison present; not the film about itself that it wants, but the one it deserves.
