Maps to the Stars (2014)

“She’s a Scientologist.”

“I was thinking of converting. Kind of a career move.”

I know I've blogged a lot of Cronenberg fils lately, but he fascinates me. He's known for his body horror, but his work (especially in recent decades) is so much more than that- philosophical, dreamlike, with clear themes but a very adult ambiguity of meaning. So here's another.

This film is, of course, a blatant denunciation, from far to the north, of Hollywood and it's vacuous culture where everyone is an aspiring actor/writer/second gaffer. And Hollywood royalty is as horrible and exploitative as anything in the Ancien Regime- arrogant, entitled, obsessed with new age mumbo jumbo, and full of nasty casual prejudices beneath the surface liberalism. They are empty leeches who both feed off and discard ordinary people, from whose lives they are so very far removed. Havana (an excellent Julianne Moore) is as much a monster as anyone in the creepily incstuous and cursed Weiss family, and the relationship between her and Agatha is, I suppose, the fairly straightforward thematic core of the film.

But we also have the weird, incestuous and similarly loathsome Weiss family, seen being generally empty and horrible until prodgal daughter Agatha returns to "make amends". The plot unfolds at the perfect pace as the full, repetitive, abusive horror of the family's curse slowly unwinds. This is, I think, a film that will reward repetitive viewings. While critics are, I know, divided on ths, still Cronenberg's latest, I personally find it utterly compelling.