Aubrey MaloneThe Maps to the Stars (18)
If you could imagine the spirit of Ingmar Bergman reincarnated into the Coen Brothers and you added a smidgeon of David Lynch to the mix, coupled with a script from Bret Easton Ellis, it might give you some idea of what to expect from this psychedelic cornucopia of angst from David Cronenberg.
Contrasting the bland vapidity of the film world with the neuroses of a dysfunctional family, itís a deeply disturbing take on the depraved ñ and deprived ñ ambience of the glitterati.
Recovering pyromaniac Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) returns to a world sheís left four years before under a cloud. Her brother Benjie (Evan Bird) is a precocious Hollywood brat of 13 (going on 30). Heís just out of drug rehab (at 13!) and finds himself threatened with being upstaged in the entertainment world by an even younger star.
Traumatised
His demented mother, Cristina (Olivia Williams), takes orders from Benjie rather than vice versa. She's married to an equally dotty hypnotherapist, Stafford (John Cusack), who is treating the severely traumatised Havana (Julianne Moore). Havana is a fading movie star trying to make a comeback in a role her mother played in the 1960s. Like Benjie, she's plagued by visions.
They're some bunch, all of them as cracked as a tuppeny watch. Youíre tempted to laugh at them sometimes, but then Cronenberg pulls the ground from under your feet with a shocking scene ñ as Cronenberg generally tends to do.
The film reminded me of Jim Jarmuschís recent Only Lovers Left Alive (which also featured Wasikowska) because of its atmospheric evocation of a semi-surreal cosmos. We might even namecheck Stanley Kubrickís The Shining as a template for the kind of quasi-poetic vignettes we get here.
It has two graphic sex scenes and a script laced with profanity, so this is strictly adult fare. There are also a few violent scenes, and a lot of oddity.
Dark porthole
It's a dark porthole into a world of trauma and shallow values. As such, it will hardly endear itself to anyone.
But if you're a fan of the phenomenon that is David Cronenberg ñ and he has many ñ you might find yourself hypnotised by
his blackly comic tableaus.
I wouldn't recommend a film like this to anyone of a sensitive nature as they'd find it decidedly unsavoury, but itís excellently acted and directed. If you're not afraid to enter what Paddy Kavanagh once called "the grey wolves of the subconscious", you might find something to admire in its moody exploration of the underbelly of a poisoned goldfish bowl.